8 ms·

In Norway, a Prison Built on Second Chances

86 points by user_235711 11y ago

paulpauper 11y ago
The 250 inmates here are locked in their cells for 12 hours a day. But those cells are private rooms, with wood furniture, a shower, a fridge and a flat-screen TV. hmmm...Private rooms could be part of the problem. Isolation can create psychosis. Maybe 12 hours a day is good enough, but I think total isolation should be avoided whenever possible, or let prisoners choose whether or not to be isolated. Integrating prisoners saves money and makes then happier. But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250.
- pavlov 11y ago
  250 is probably an average-size prison in Norway? Here in Finland, the largest prison in the country can accomodate 299 inmates. I imagine Norway's situation is roughly similar.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    It seems to be one of the biggest prison in the country, Bergen can house 258 inmates but it's not clear that there are bigger prisons, trawling through the official listing[0] and looking for "insette" (inducted/inmates) and "plasser" (places/seats) most prisons units are in the high 60s, with very few approaching 200. [0] http://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/finn-fengsel.237849.no.html http://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/finn-fengsel.237849.no.html
- kakemannen 11y ago
  if you count 8 houers sleeping, then they are lockt in 4 houers of "awake" time lockt in there rooms
- masklinn 11y ago
  > But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250. While Halden is a maximum security prison, it's also highly focused on rehabilitation, so it's not necessarily where the worst offenders are (Breivik is at Ila for instance, which can hold 124 people). Halden is actually a fairly big prison by norwegian standard I think, the capacity of the whole Norwegian prison system is a bit below 4000 (77 per 100000 citizens, the current incarceration rate is 72 per 100000 according to wikipedia).
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    72/100,000 versus Louisiana's 867/100,000 is a pretty shocking difference. Wow. The lowest in the US (Maine) is still 148/100,000.
    - drpgq 11y ago
      I'm surprised Maine is only twice times Norway.
- yulaow 11y ago
  I doubt it makes them happier. It would IF you can choose with who stay in the room and move in another if you don't like the company. I mean I had to share some rooms for some weeks with different people, it was one of the worst experience of my life: different behaviors, idea of "respecting personal spaces", idea of "maximum noise allowed", habits at night, hygiene, etc... It is really something stressful. In a prison, when you risk to end up with people you probably won't like at all, is far better to have a personal room to stay for the big part of the time.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  I don't think "inmates stay in their rooms at night" really counts as isolation. Most people with roommates still want a private room to retreat to.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  I regularly don't leave my home 12 hours or more at a time... Should I be worried? ;-)
kristofferR 11y ago
Cool that this appeared here right now, as I'm in the middle of rewatching The House I Live In, a fantastic documentary about the US drug war/justice system. Go watch it now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8 The current US system is mindblowingly stupid. People who are treated like animals tend to act like it, especially if they're encouraged to.
- jmngomes 11y ago
  "People who are treated like animals tend to act like it" I'd alternatively say that "people tend to act defensively/aggressively when they are mistreated the way humans mistreat other animals so often"
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Thanks, I wish one day that view on animals will stop. Too much hypocrisy coming from humans.
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    I'd say its not just "mistreatment" of animals, because even the stuff you do to beloved animals would be demeaning to a human being. Especially the part about controlling virtually every part of their lives. For pets, that is ok or even better than most alternatives. For Humans? Hell on earth.
- kw71 11y ago
  What's amazing is that the US penal system acts the way it does even when these examples have been on the planet for decades and the benefits clearly visible. It also seems that the general consensus among psychologists and psychiatrists is that the current system damages people and does nothing to achieve its alleged aims. Running a third world penal system only burdens our society in so many ways, and it's even officially named in the third-world/soviet/despotic style of calling it something it's not: a "correctional" system.
  - kristofferR 11y ago
mediascreen 11y ago
Sweden has a similar system. And the Swedish Prison and Probation Service even has a "an average day in prison"-page about everyday life at a Swedish medium security prison: https://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fangelse/en-dag-pa-fangelset https://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fan...
- masklinn 11y ago
  Halden is high/maximum security though.
BjoernKW 11y ago
There's a non-profit organization in Germany called Leonhard, which educates and coaches inmates to become entrepreneurs when they're released from prison: http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.leonhard.eu/&prev=search http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://ww... I think that's a wonderful example of how to both treat prisoners respectfully and at the same time provide a benefit to society.
tomjen3 11y ago
Too bad there are no second chances for the victims though.
- linuxhansl 11y ago
  So you want revenge? Because one life it ruined (assuming irreparable crimes like rape or murder) you need to ruin another one? The goal of penal system should not be punishment, but rather prevention of crime. Punishment is only one aspect of crime prevention. IMHO, imprisonment has two goals: 1. deterrence, to prevent _another_ person to commit the same crime in the future 2. get really dangerous people away from the general population (this would be rare) Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    >Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders. That is, at the very best, an extremely simplified extreme opinion. Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims, including punishing the offender. I don't get why this is an extreme pov but apparently it is.
    - narrowingorbits 11y ago
      > Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims... Yes, society should do everything it can to help the victims---to help the victims to heal. Society has no imperative to help the victims to hate.
      - tomjen3 11y ago
        Ah but healing requires pain be inflicted on your transgressor.
        11y ago
bsenftner 11y ago
The US prison system is actually an industrialized slavery system for US corporations. The prison system here has a "work program" for inmates where they earn pennies per hour to manufacture products for US corporations. Investigate how institutionalized this practice has become. We need to stop this immediately, as it can and will spread unless we do. This is evil unmasked. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit... http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_... http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/prison-small-business-ent-manage-cx_mf_0818prisonlabor.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/prison-small-business-ent-m...
- notdanariely 11y ago
  I agree that this trend is disturbing, but am unable to reconcile your alarmist language with the numbers in the links you provided. I do not support private corporations (or even public good -- yes, I think the chain gang days of old are similarly awful) making money off of prisoners. However, from the articles you linked, some data: * 2 million (2,000,000) inmates in federal/state/local prisons. * 100 private prisons, 62,000 inmates in them (6.2%) * 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states (unsure how this relates to previous point, the article isn't very well written and doesn't connect these numbers) * Forbes.com article says there are 6,000 prisoners in the US serving time while working for a private enterprise. So on the one extreme, we're looking at 6% of the prison population being affected by this. At the other extreme, there are only 6k prisoners affected. I believe there are a huge number of ethical and moral violations surrounding the prison side of the US criminal justice system. Private prisons are one of them, but hyperbole and extreme language do not serve any of the population.
  - themartorana 11y ago
    I think "hyperbole" is unfair. Waiting to be "alarmist" until after an "alarm" has the capacity to halt a terrible situation is rather pointless. It's so much easier to stop a bad practice than walk it back from significant implementation. This may be small, but it's growing rapidly, and if it's 6.2% now, it's 15% by 2020, and so on.
dataker 11y ago
It's a good idea for Americans to get elements from the article, but it's impossible to completely emulate it. Norway has a smaller and more homogeneous population, making these programs easier to be managed and funded.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Aren't most prisoners in the US in State, rather than Federal, prisons? Norway has a larger population than a lot of US States.
- heidar 11y ago
  What does population size have to do with it? Population density in the US and Norway is similar I think. I can imagine a homogeneous population resulting in a lower crime rate although I have no data to back that up. I think a low crime rate makes it possible to have higher quality programs like this.
  - shin_lao 11y ago
    You have threshold effects. Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Sure, the US is going to have more very difficult cases because it has more people. Let's skim those very difficult cases off for the moment: why can't the US make better use of concepts like restorative justice and rehabilitation for the rest of the criminal justice population? It's cheaper; it's more effective to reduce crime; it's better for the children involved; etc etc etc.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      > Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases. So divide the jurisdictions to where they're manageable. We already do this - each state runs their system independently, just as each EU member state does instead of having a single European prison system.
kristofferR 11y ago
This is on the front page of one of the largest newspapers in Norway right now: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/fengselsdoemt-nordmann-i-soeknad-ber-om-aa-bli-henrettet/a/23461936/ http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/fengselsdoemt-nordmann... A Norwegian guy in the US, convicted to 7 years in prison for driving the wrong way down a one way street (and not injuring anyone btw), asks to be executed because the prison he is in is so horrible since he doesn't receive enough pain medication (he broke his neck in prison). He spends most of the time in isolation.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  I think you're giving an incomplete version of what happened. Anyone who's interested can read a more complete account in English: http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/04/25/20120425winslow-wrong-turn-prison-norwegian-man.html http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/04/25/201204...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hnarn 11y ago
  1) He was not convicted merely for "driving the wrong way down a one way street", he was convicted for driving recklessly down a road with a lot of people on it. 2) He is not asking to be executed because the prison is horrible, but because they have taken away his pain meds -- which they did because he (allegedly) tried not swallowing them in order to sell them. There's definitely more to this story, I wouldn't be so sure that he's completely innocent (regardless of how reasonable the sentence is). The link posted by twoodfin says this: "He has a history of aggressive behavior," said Navajo County Attorney Carlyon, whose investigators unearthed police reports relating to John in Alabama, Illinois and California. Those incidents included threats, an alleged stalking of a young girl, an attempted suicide and a run-in with a Los Angeles bicyclist in which John was accused of running over the man's bicycle in a fit of anger. Not all the incidents resulted in charges, and none resulted in a conviction."
  - barrkel 11y ago
buro9 11y ago
It's fine building a prison on the premise of second chances, but it will fail if the society it belongs to isn't build on the premise of offering a second (or third, etc) chance. Either you believe in the ability of every human to change their behaviour, and you give them a chance to... every time... or you don't. This, I feel, is tied to the death penalty too. Societies that give no second chance do not seem to worry too much about killing people.
aarmenante 11y ago
What if someone opened a for-profit prison in the US that focused on rehabilitation? The prison could start by bidding on incarceration contracts for non-violent drug offenders. The prison could take notes from the Scandinavian system: * Humane housing * Counseling * Family visits * Emphasis on self-reliance To help reduce the costs of the prison, the inmates could produce something that is very labor intensive and hard to create without cheap labor. Farming? Food production? Laundering uniforms? QA testing for large software companies? (Only half joking.) Without the political clout that the Corrections Corp of America has, I bet it would be difficult to bid for contracts, but it's a more realistic way of making a change than political pressure.

86 points by user_235711 11y ago

The 250 inmates here are locked in their cells for 12 hours a day. But those cells are private rooms, with wood furniture, a shower, a fridge and a flat-screen TV. hmmm...Private rooms could be part of the problem. Isolation can create psychosis. Maybe 12 hours a day is good enough, but I think total isolation should be avoided whenever possible, or let prisoners choose whether or not to be isolated. Integrating prisoners saves money and makes then happier. But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250.

pavlov 11y ago
250 is probably an average-size prison in Norway? Here in Finland, the largest prison in the country can accomodate 299 inmates. I imagine Norway's situation is roughly similar.
- masklinn 11y ago
  It seems to be one of the biggest prison in the country, Bergen can house 258 inmates but it's not clear that there are bigger prisons, trawling through the official listing[0] and looking for "insette" (inducted/inmates) and "plasser" (places/seats) most prisons units are in the high 60s, with very few approaching 200. [0] http://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/finn-fengsel.237849.no.html http://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/finn-fengsel.237849.no.html
kakemannen 11y ago
if you count 8 houers sleeping, then they are lockt in 4 houers of "awake" time lockt in there rooms
masklinn 11y ago
> But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250. While Halden is a maximum security prison, it's also highly focused on rehabilitation, so it's not necessarily where the worst offenders are (Breivik is at Ila for instance, which can hold 124 people). Halden is actually a fairly big prison by norwegian standard I think, the capacity of the whole Norwegian prison system is a bit below 4000 (77 per 100000 citizens, the current incarceration rate is 72 per 100000 according to wikipedia).
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  72/100,000 versus Louisiana's 867/100,000 is a pretty shocking difference. Wow. The lowest in the US (Maine) is still 148/100,000.
  - drpgq 11y ago
    I'm surprised Maine is only twice times Norway.
yulaow 11y ago
I doubt it makes them happier. It would IF you can choose with who stay in the room and move in another if you don't like the company. I mean I had to share some rooms for some weeks with different people, it was one of the worst experience of my life: different behaviors, idea of "respecting personal spaces", idea of "maximum noise allowed", habits at night, hygiene, etc... It is really something stressful. In a prison, when you risk to end up with people you probably won't like at all, is far better to have a personal room to stay for the big part of the time.
ceejayoz 11y ago
I don't think "inmates stay in their rooms at night" really counts as isolation. Most people with roommates still want a private room to retreat to.
bayesianhorse 11y ago
I regularly don't leave my home 12 hours or more at a time... Should I be worried? ;-)

kristofferR 11y ago

Cool that this appeared here right now, as I'm in the middle of rewatching The House I Live In, a fantastic documentary about the US drug war/justice system. Go watch it now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8 The current US system is mindblowingly stupid. People who are treated like animals tend to act like it, especially if they're encouraged to.

jmngomes 11y ago
"People who are treated like animals tend to act like it" I'd alternatively say that "people tend to act defensively/aggressively when they are mistreated the way humans mistreat other animals so often"
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Thanks, I wish one day that view on animals will stop. Too much hypocrisy coming from humans.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  I'd say its not just "mistreatment" of animals, because even the stuff you do to beloved animals would be demeaning to a human being. Especially the part about controlling virtually every part of their lives. For pets, that is ok or even better than most alternatives. For Humans? Hell on earth.
kw71 11y ago
What's amazing is that the US penal system acts the way it does even when these examples have been on the planet for decades and the benefits clearly visible. It also seems that the general consensus among psychologists and psychiatrists is that the current system damages people and does nothing to achieve its alleged aims. Running a third world penal system only burdens our society in so many ways, and it's even officially named in the third-world/soviet/despotic style of calling it something it's not: a "correctional" system.
- kristofferR 11y ago

mediascreen 11y ago

Sweden has a similar system. And the Swedish Prison and Probation Service even has a "an average day in prison"-page about everyday life at a Swedish medium security prison: https://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fangelse/en-dag-pa-fangelset https://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fan...

masklinn 11y ago
Halden is high/maximum security though.

BjoernKW 11y ago

There's a non-profit organization in Germany called Leonhard, which educates and coaches inmates to become entrepreneurs when they're released from prison: http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.leonhard.eu/&prev=search http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://ww... I think that's a wonderful example of how to both treat prisoners respectfully and at the same time provide a benefit to society.

tomjen3 11y ago

Too bad there are no second chances for the victims though.

linuxhansl 11y ago
So you want revenge? Because one life it ruined (assuming irreparable crimes like rape or murder) you need to ruin another one? The goal of penal system should not be punishment, but rather prevention of crime. Punishment is only one aspect of crime prevention. IMHO, imprisonment has two goals: 1. deterrence, to prevent _another_ person to commit the same crime in the future 2. get really dangerous people away from the general population (this would be rare) Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  >Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders. That is, at the very best, an extremely simplified extreme opinion. Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims, including punishing the offender. I don't get why this is an extreme pov but apparently it is.
  - narrowingorbits 11y ago
    > Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims... Yes, society should do everything it can to help the victims---to help the victims to heal. Society has no imperative to help the victims to hate.
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      Ah but healing requires pain be inflicted on your transgressor.
      - 11y ago

bsenftner 11y ago

The US prison system is actually an industrialized slavery system for US corporations. The prison system here has a "work program" for inmates where they earn pennies per hour to manufacture products for US corporations. Investigate how institutionalized this practice has become. We need to stop this immediately, as it can and will spread unless we do. This is evil unmasked. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit... http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_... http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/prison-small-business-ent-manage-cx_mf_0818prisonlabor.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/prison-small-business-ent-m...

notdanariely 11y ago
I agree that this trend is disturbing, but am unable to reconcile your alarmist language with the numbers in the links you provided. I do not support private corporations (or even public good -- yes, I think the chain gang days of old are similarly awful) making money off of prisoners. However, from the articles you linked, some data: * 2 million (2,000,000) inmates in federal/state/local prisons. * 100 private prisons, 62,000 inmates in them (6.2%) * 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states (unsure how this relates to previous point, the article isn't very well written and doesn't connect these numbers) * Forbes.com article says there are 6,000 prisoners in the US serving time while working for a private enterprise. So on the one extreme, we're looking at 6% of the prison population being affected by this. At the other extreme, there are only 6k prisoners affected. I believe there are a huge number of ethical and moral violations surrounding the prison side of the US criminal justice system. Private prisons are one of them, but hyperbole and extreme language do not serve any of the population.
- themartorana 11y ago
  I think "hyperbole" is unfair. Waiting to be "alarmist" until after an "alarm" has the capacity to halt a terrible situation is rather pointless. It's so much easier to stop a bad practice than walk it back from significant implementation. This may be small, but it's growing rapidly, and if it's 6.2% now, it's 15% by 2020, and so on.

dataker 11y ago

It's a good idea for Americans to get elements from the article, but it's impossible to completely emulate it. Norway has a smaller and more homogeneous population, making these programs easier to be managed and funded.

arethuza 11y ago
Aren't most prisoners in the US in State, rather than Federal, prisons? Norway has a larger population than a lot of US States.
heidar 11y ago
What does population size have to do with it? Population density in the US and Norway is similar I think. I can imagine a homogeneous population resulting in a lower crime rate although I have no data to back that up. I think a low crime rate makes it possible to have higher quality programs like this.
- shin_lao 11y ago
  You have threshold effects. Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Sure, the US is going to have more very difficult cases because it has more people. Let's skim those very difficult cases off for the moment: why can't the US make better use of concepts like restorative justice and rehabilitation for the rest of the criminal justice population? It's cheaper; it's more effective to reduce crime; it's better for the children involved; etc etc etc.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    > Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases. So divide the jurisdictions to where they're manageable. We already do this - each state runs their system independently, just as each EU member state does instead of having a single European prison system.

kristofferR 11y ago

This is on the front page of one of the largest newspapers in Norway right now: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/fengselsdoemt-nordmann-i-soeknad-ber-om-aa-bli-henrettet/a/23461936/ http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/fengselsdoemt-nordmann... A Norwegian guy in the US, convicted to 7 years in prison for driving the wrong way down a one way street (and not injuring anyone btw), asks to be executed because the prison he is in is so horrible since he doesn't receive enough pain medication (he broke his neck in prison). He spends most of the time in isolation.

twoodfin 11y ago
I think you're giving an incomplete version of what happened. Anyone who's interested can read a more complete account in English: http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/04/25/20120425winslow-wrong-turn-prison-norwegian-man.html http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/04/25/201204...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
hnarn 11y ago
1) He was not convicted merely for "driving the wrong way down a one way street", he was convicted for driving recklessly down a road with a lot of people on it. 2) He is not asking to be executed because the prison is horrible, but because they have taken away his pain meds -- which they did because he (allegedly) tried not swallowing them in order to sell them. There's definitely more to this story, I wouldn't be so sure that he's completely innocent (regardless of how reasonable the sentence is). The link posted by twoodfin says this: "He has a history of aggressive behavior," said Navajo County Attorney Carlyon, whose investigators unearthed police reports relating to John in Alabama, Illinois and California. Those incidents included threats, an alleged stalking of a young girl, an attempted suicide and a run-in with a Los Angeles bicyclist in which John was accused of running over the man's bicycle in a fit of anger. Not all the incidents resulted in charges, and none resulted in a conviction."
- barrkel 11y ago

buro9 11y ago

It's fine building a prison on the premise of second chances, but it will fail if the society it belongs to isn't build on the premise of offering a second (or third, etc) chance. Either you believe in the ability of every human to change their behaviour, and you give them a chance to... every time... or you don't. This, I feel, is tied to the death penalty too. Societies that give no second chance do not seem to worry too much about killing people.

aarmenante 11y ago

What if someone opened a for-profit prison in the US that focused on rehabilitation? The prison could start by bidding on incarceration contracts for non-violent drug offenders. The prison could take notes from the Scandinavian system: * Humane housing * Counseling * Family visits * Emphasis on self-reliance To help reduce the costs of the prison, the inmates could produce something that is very labor intensive and hard to create without cheap labor. Farming? Food production? Laundering uniforms? QA testing for large software companies? (Only half joking.) Without the political clout that the Corrections Corp of America has, I bet it would be difficult to bid for contracts, but it's a more realistic way of making a change than political pressure.