Nor way! Where convicts lead the good life.

[argatoga]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/e...rison?page=0,1

OSLO, Norway — The first time I went to prison, it was to an idyllic place with lush woodland, bright-colored houses and the waters of the Oslo fjord sparkling in the summer sun.

It was July 2006 and I was visiting Bastoey, an open prison 45 miles south of the Norwegian capital. It is home to about 115 detainees, including murderers, rapists and other felons, who enjoy activities not usually associated with prisons.

In summer, they can improve their backhand on the tennis court, ride a horse in the forest and hit the beach for a swim. In winter, they can go cross-country skiing or participate in the prison's ski-jumping competition.
Inmates work between 8:15 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The island is a farm, so there are cattle to tend, timber to cut and organic crops to grow. Inmates also work at a sawmill, using axes, knives and saws. Another job is to restore wooden houses dotted around the island. Based on their time in Bastoey, many men will obtain professional qualifications.
After work, inmates retreat to their homes: comfortable wooden houses shared between four to six inmates.

Bastoey is based on the idea that traditional, repressive prisons do not work.

"The biggest mistake that our societies have made is to believe that you must punish hard to change criminals," explained Oeyvind Alnaes, Bastoey's then-prison governor. "This is wrong. The big closed prisons are criminal schools. If you treat people badly, they will behave badly. Anyone can be a citizen if we treat them well, respect them, and give them challenges and demands."

Alnaes' views reflect the way Norway and the rest of Scandinavia run their penal systems. In Norway, there are no death sentences — or even life sentences. The maximum jail term anyone can receive is 21 years, including for murder. Most people will serve two-thirds of their term before being released. Convicts retain the right to vote and can exercise it while in jail.
All inmates start their sentence in a traditional, closed prison. These more secure facilities share some of the ills their American counterparts are known for, including high drug abuse, lack of education and job opportunities, which means most detainees spend 23 out of 24 hours locked in their cells. Even so, the experience of closed prisons here is quite different from those of prisons abroad.

The second time I went to prison was in September, to a high-security detention facility in central Oslo. I was there to meet Bjoernar Dahl, a 43-year-old inmate who, a few days before, had been debating crime policy with the justice minister and an opposition politician, during a primetime television election debate. The debate was broadcast live from inside the prison walls, in front of an audience of inmates and guards.

"It was high time the politicians came here to talk about crime policy," said Dahl, who is serving a five-year sentence for complicity in smuggling amphetamines. "This is about us, what happens in prisons and how we can return to society in a way that is beneficial to everyone."

The show caused no outrage in Norway. There were no headlines expressing shock that inmates could voice their opinions in public debate. Nor was there condemnation of NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, for hosting a political debate inside a prison.

"There is a greater tendency to keep prisons open [to the public] so that people can see inmates as human beings they can identify with," said Nils Christie, a professor of criminology at the University of Oslo.

That's not to say that crime and punishment issues are uncontroversial in Norway. The Progress party, the largest party in opposition, has for years called for tougher, longer sentences for perpetrators of violent crimes — a view that has now been adopted by the Labour-led government.
But overall, Norway is much less repressive than America is. Norway has one of the lowest incarceration rates in Europe at 66 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 738 per 100,000 inhabitants in the U.S.
"When you listen to the justice minister, he generally emphasises the need for reintegration into society rather than the need for punishment," Christie said. "In Norway, there is more emphasis [than in other countries] on seeing prisons as part of normal society."

Official policy suggests that inmates finish their sentence in an open prison like Bastoey, to ease their reintegration into society.
Another issue of debate, now solved with the addition of more cells, has been the long waiting time convicted criminals had to wait before going to prison, as Norway does not overcrowd its detention centers. It could take months, sometimes years, before they could serve their sentences. During that time many would be staying at home.

Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify two points about the debate over Norway's penal system.

[BlaRo]

Top Gear Top Tip: if you want to rape or murder someone, do it in Norway!

Seriously though, it certainly sounds like they're taking the "prison as rehabilitation center" thing a little too far. Doing all those things might be fun, but it still comes at the cost of your freedom.

And I doubt all prisons in Norway are glorified Boy Scout camps.

[argatoga]

Personally I think they should just send them out on Viking style raids. The once mighty Scotts have been effeminated and fattened by deep fried food, the English are too busy installing surveillance cameras up people's asses, and the Welsh haven't shot a bow in anger for centuries. The U.K. is still ripe for plunder!

[tigger]

Originally Posted by argatoga

Personally I think they should just send them out on Viking style raids. The once mighty Scotts have been effeminated and fattened by deep fried food, the English are too busy installing surveillance cameras up people's asses, and the Welsh haven't shot a bow in anger for centuries. The U.K. is still ripe for plunder!

Now that would be worth going to jail for.

[AiR]

I wouldnt go so far as to call it the good life but it is a model that I hope more will adapt in the future. My instinct tells me the reason this is quite rare is that it's expensive, but seeing as how the convicts on the island both produce goods and learn a trade in the process I'm not so sure it's that more expensive than the traditional form of incarceration which also is very expensive yet does not give the convicts the knowledge of a honest trade. Sure you can read theoretical subjects in traditional prisons but that is rarely useful for these people anyway.

I'll go and start a "Norway rules" social group now.

[Twerp128]

I agree that punishment is ineffective in building self-discipline, but this is a bit nicey, nice. On the other hand if they forced me to ride horses and cross country ski that would be my version of hell.

[Karoug]

Originally Posted by AiR

I'll go and start a "Norway rules" social group now.

Traitor!!!

[Night_Hawk]

They make some good points though, I mean if they can make criminals actually want to get a real job ( like not pretending ) after release, That's a job well done as far as I know.

Sure beats locking them up and feeding them every day for 30+ years.

[thevictor390]

Right, what I'd like to see is some statistics on repeat offenses and post-incarceration job hires.

[jetsetter]

Actual punishment should not be abandoned. If the conditions inside the facility are better to the prisoner than the outside then it is not really punishment.

[nomix]

Being locked up, and not having the freedom to chose what to do with your day is punishment.

Punishment is one part, that's important, it's important for society to prove that it's not okay to break the law. But the idea that people commit crimes because of low sentences is faulted. First time offenders will freak out over a three month sentence, career criminals really don't care. When you can't scare people from killing people by killing people for killing people, you ain't gonna scare people from killing people by putting them in supermax for the rest of their lives.

The reason why the progress party wants longer penalties is mainly psychological, it's about society trying to punish the bad guys harder cause criminals should pay their dues. It's a question of public opinion.

Right now, I'd like to quote John Adams about the law.

"On the one hand it [the law] is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace."

I guess that's part of my point. Crime and punishment isn't about the clarmors of the populace. It's about what benefits society. When the Gods want to punish us, they answer our prairs.

Treath people badly, they go badly.

[efoolution]

People commit crimes, get locked up for a certain period of time as punishment and get out again. Norway does that.
The only real difference is that they try to give the people a perspective, try to make them "better", help them if they can be helped with issues. They try to make sure people don´t fall back to their bad habits.
What´s the point in locking someone up 10 years and then have him/her come out with nothing changed and going straight at it again? When you (as in State/Goverment) get your hands on a criminal for some time ... I think it is your DUTY for society to do everything you can that this criminal CHANGES his ways so that he will no longer pose a threat to society after his time has been served. Locking someone up, throwing away the key and then wondering why they went straight back to a life of crime - come on! There are blind people out there that laugh at this kind of short-sightness.

Norway.

[AiR]

Originally Posted by Karoug

Traitor!!!

http://forums.finalgear.com/groups/norway-rules/

[thevictor390]

This still begs the question, does it work? It's all fine and dandy in concept but the article mentions nothing about whether it actually reduces repeat offenses.

[gtrietsc]

I am just floored at the notion that "you can't go where you want!" is some great punishment, but hard labor and the death penalty are not.

[AiR]

They are not free. That is punishment. And they are working. They're producing. They're learning and creating a better situation for themselves and the society when they get out. The death penalty is a great punishment if you're a political leader in a one-party state and seek to squash all opposition. If you're not, then it's inhuman, counter-productive and expensive.

[gtrietsc]

Originally Posted by AiR

They are not free. That is punishment. And they are working. They're producing. They're learning and creating a better situation for themselves and the society when they get out. The death penalty is a great punishment if you're a political leader in a one-party state and seek to squash all opposition. If you're not, then it's inhuman, counter-productive and expensive.

I read a good article the other day debating the pros and cons of the death penalty. One good thing - states that have the death penalty as an option often use it as a tool to get a better/longer plea agreement from a defendant for a prison sentence. So that's a nice plus.

[nomix]

Originally Posted by AiR

http://forums.finalgear.com/groups/norway-rules/

"Are you sure you want to join the group called "Norway rules!"?"

Yes/No

Originally Posted by thevictor390

This still begs the question, does it work? It's all fine and dandy in concept but the article mentions nothing about whether it actually reduces repeat offenses.

What's obvious is that harsher punishment has rarely been proven to work as far as the objective is to prevent crime.

There is however no doubt that rehabilitation works better than nothing. There was a great experiment on rehabilitation back in the 1800s. Remember when they first populated Australia? They populated Australia with convicts. What the governor attempted to do was to let the convicts work with reasonable freedom with their own trades, and in the end it worked pretty well.

What is clear is that putting someone in jail for a specified time, only to let them be educated by other criminals on how to be better criminals is less constructive than for example letting them learn a trade or get an education. Education is the one magic bullet that works against crime. If you have education, you're less inclined to be out of work. If you've got a job, you're less inclined to commit a crime. The statistics are very clear on that.

It's like when you want to stop subsidising farms in Colombia. The moment you stop doing that, the farmers that no longer get money for farming sugar or whatever they farm start farming cocaine.

Being against rehabilitation isn't being hard on crime. It's being soft and naive on crime.

Originally Posted by gtrietsc

I am just floored at the notion that "you can't go where you want!" is some great punishment, but hard labor and the death penalty are not.

No one says that's how it is. Hard labor and the death penalty is great punishment, but one does not exclude the other. Rehabilitation works a lot better than putting criminals to death, that's for sure.

The reason you can't get your head around that is that you're mistaking justice with revenge, and visa versa. You see the role of the state as the vengeful punisher of criminals. We see the role of the state as the rehabilitator of the criminals. In the end, harsher punishments has never been proven to work, never ever.

Rehabilitation has, in contrast, shown good results.

It's really a no brainer. If you want less crime, you need to start working at issues that make people commit crimes.

Let me ask you this. Is it better to make a vaccine for a fatal illness, or is it better to medicate it when it occurs? Think about it.

[gtrietsc]

It seems to me there is a disconnect in what we even argue about.

Do I think that someone who commits petty theft can be rehabbed? Sure. There are criminals for which rehab is definitely an option - and getting educated is a good way to make them into productive people.

The people I reserve harsher punishments for are the derelicts of society. I am talking about your hardened POS gang bangers, drug kingpins, serial killers, serial rapists, etc.

With Norway having just a population only 1.54% the size of the US, not to mention the different racial, economic, and geographical makeup of your country, I am sure you don't have the same number or types of criminals we do.

Let me ask you - just because taking some Tylenol will relieve your headache, is that also enough treatment for a stab wound? Think about it.

[airmenair]

I'm a bit conflicted on this. I do see the points of both Nomix and gtrietsc. I think there are crimes that do no warrant a second chance or rehabilition. Gtrietsc pretty much covered it those individuals. IMO, some people simply can't be rehabbed. Some people just are evil. These people should be locked up and never reintegrated into society, it's not fair to victims and it's not fair to society. They should also never be kept with those who can be rehabilitated. I think Nomix alluded to something like this. Where criminals locked in with criminals only learn how to be a better criminal. Locking those who can be rehabbed and those who cannot is just counter productive.

I think the whole idea is a bit Utopian. It sounds good, I like the thought, but I'm just not sure how well it works.