An American Warden Visited A Norwegian Prison, And He Couldn't Believe What He Saw

Commit a murder, and get rewarded and pampered with a short sentence, and a luxurious lifestyle...

Yeah, DIE ALREADY SCUM.

originally posted by: Viking9019
The prisons in Norway are well known for being like a goddamn hotel.
It's sickening.

It's "sickening", but you cannot deny that whatever it is they are doing, they are doing a much better job than the USA.
Look at the statistics, you can't just look at the image and shove your head in the sand muttering to yourself.

The entire point of incarceration is for inmates to be punished with a loss of FREEDOM (not that this does not mean shoving them in an oubliette and forgetting about them), and then to be REHABILITATED. Obviously, America is really not achieving anything, while Norway is.

originally posted by: intrepid
I'd say from some of the responses here that the US model is more based on punishment than it is on rehabilitation.

In reality it's more based on greed than anything else. The US prison system (unless I'm wrong) is primarily privatized and for-profit. Remember the case of a Judge caught taking bribes and payouts from a private juvenile detention company to lock up more kids for petty crimes and misdemeanors?

There are people making a billions of $'s from the modern slavery of a predominantly black prison population in the USA. Slavery didn't really die, they just made it more "acceptable" to an unquestioning public.

a reply to: Kromlech

What if you didn't commit a murder, but was taken for possession of a small bag of Marijuana

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: intrepid
I'd say from some of the responses here that the US model is more based on punishment than it is on rehabilitation.

In reality it's more based on greed than anything else. The US prison system (unless I'm wrong) is primarily privatized and for-profit. Remember the case of a Judge caught taking bribes and payouts from a private juvenile detention company to lock up more kids for petty crimes and misdemeanors?

There are people making a billions of $'s from the modern slavery of a predominantly black prison population in the USA. Slavery didn't really die, they just made it more "acceptable" to an unquestioning public.

Good example here..... I live in that exact same county where "kids for cash" was a thing.... With all that out of the way, I can safely say there is no less corruption than before... It's just "adults for cash" here and most everywhere else in this country...

originally posted by: Viking9019
The prisons in Norway are well known for being like a goddamn hotel.
It's sickening.

Wauw... you completely missed the point there didn't you...

Try reading it again. Here's what I read:

- In America prisoners live under appalling conditions....

- In Norway prisoners live in human conditions.....

- America has 10 times more in-mates than Norway. 10 times more people serving time for committing a crime.

Which country is doing it the right way?

If you condition a man to live in a world of #, you'll get # in return once he gets out.
Why the hell is that not obvious for you people? You are so #ing caught up in tooth for tooth, eye for an eye, instead of figuring out how to prevent. The irony is that your attitude is exactly what is creating more of the same....

I hear a lot of prisoner pity in this thread.
Only a few have noted the quality of the people involved.

In America most of our prisoners are the scum of the Earth.
Prison didn't make them that way. Crappy parenting did.
Putting them in rooms with dart boards and IKEA furniture isn't going to fix them.
The vast majority will never make anything of themselves if they did get out.

What the artical doesn't talk about is the race card.
Lets give them 100 of our typical gangbangers and see what those rooms look like in a month.

In the US a large percentage of prisoners barely make it into the human category.
And then only because they can speak 200 words.

originally posted by: samkent
I hear a lot of prisoner pity in this thread.
Only a few have noted the quality of the people involved.

In America most of our prisoners are the scum of the Earth.
Prison didn't make them that way. Crappy parenting did.
Putting them in rooms with dart boards and IKEA furniture isn't going to fix them.
The vast majority will never make anything of themselves if they did get out.

What the artical doesn't talk about is the race card.
Lets give them 100 of our typical gangbangers and see what those rooms look like in a month.

In the US a large percentage of prisoners barely make it into the human category.
And then only because they can speak 200 words.

Your post says a lot about "America" in general; it says we feel many people are below the human level and as such it's ok to mistreat them or treat them inhumanely.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Duhh. What do you think its all about? Making stronger self sufficient Americans? Hah, no we need servants and consumers to maintain our selfish and lavish lifestyles at the top.

This is a cultural issue.

In the US the penal system is focussed on punishment. The ultimate manifestation of this is the death penalty. Prison is a way of removing a person from society.

In most of the rest of the West, of which Norway is an extreme, prison is focussed on punishment and rehabilitation. Capital punishment is outlawed across all of Western Europe.

Regards

a reply to: paraphi

I've been saying it, it's revenge culture.

They don't want us focused on solutions we need to keep the machine running!

Yeah, emotional appeal, yay, consume!

a reply to: AlaskanDad

I think it would be hard to implement here due to the differences in population between Norway and us. Thats why you see the lower crimes rates and lower prison population. I think that we should really concentrate on rehabilitation instead of punitive incarceration. But for those that can't be let back in society, throw away the key and don't worry about it.

I will be the first to say my thoughts on Prison and prisoners were wrong!

After reading and doing a little research I totally agree that we should have different levels and the low scale offense people that have not committed murder should be treated like humans and they should have a life after prison.

I think Norway is way ahead of the USA on the humanity prison level. Just needed to see a different viewpoint to open my eyes and see this in a different light.

Thanks OP this was a great thread and I give you a star and flag!

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
Don't worry, Norway's luxurious prison standards will drop once the immigrant population overwhelms the natives and police have to begin catching the newly-arrived criminals and the courts convict them. This isn't anti-immigrant rhetoric, statistics show the increase in crime rates in every Scandinavian country since the EU began importing huge numbers of third world immigrants by calling them political refugees.

When that happeneds it will be the imigrants who run Our country. They are already entering into Our goverment.

Thanks samkent. You tell it like it is.
With Obama's open border, inviting every loser on this side of the planet
to our country, you ant seen nothing yet.
WE dont have jobs for our own citizens but we are letting millions of untrained
uneducated in. Its just beginning.
Invest in prisons it should be in ever Americans portfolio.

originally posted by: nfflhome
Thanks samkent. You tell it like it is.
With Obama's open border, inviting every loser on this side of the planet
to our country, you ant seen nothing yet.
WE dont have jobs for our own citizens but we are letting millions of untrained
uneducated in. Its just beginning.
Invest in prisons it should be in ever Americans portfolio.

Might be a plan behind that. Cheep Labour replacement. Dosent matter who does the work as long as it it cheep.

Hey the Federal prisons here in the US are almost as nice (Almost)

There are some cases where the Norwegian prison system doesn't seem right.

This guy have way too much "freedom".
Anders Behring Breivik's prison: Ila near Oslo
He even have the nerves to complain.
CLICK ME

a reply to: Asktheanimals

I was just about to mention it myself. I'm not Norwegian, but I've lived here for almost fifteen years now. I have previously worked with Norwegian law enforcement as well. Unfortunately for Norway, they're taking in far too many immigrants. (If that's a good or bad thing, that's a debate for another thread.) What this means for Norway is that often, these immigrants come without any identification. Typically they toss their passport and any other form of I.D. when they enter Norway and seek for asylum. This means, that criminals get to roam Norwegian streets unhindered.

Thanks to Norway's rather lax prison system, it's often viewed as a joke and doesn't provide much of a deterrence. Especially considering that many of these criminals would have been killed in their home country, or at least mutilated. So they continue to commit crimes as the pay-off is worth it.

Despite this though, I feel that Norway is on the right track and I applaud them for it. But eventually, they too will be faced with the reality that they are unable to provide rehabilitation for everyone, especially when the prison populace increases every year.

Criminals in America are ALREADY known to break the law after being released so they can go back to prison. There they get food, shelter, healthcare, etc. If you made it a 4 star hotel like the Norway prison none of them would ever leave. It's like you're doing them a FAVOR by keeping them locked up.