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

a reply to: jjkenobi

So you're saying that it's a societal problem then?

It looks like the set of a reality show in the us.

The prison system in the U.K is being upgraded to the U.S system , a central block with wings of 50 + cells either side , unlike the old victorian prisons where the time flew the new super prisons a day feels like a week but you still get people who want to get sent to prison to kick drug habits , but if they looked like the Norwegian cells everyone would be in trouble to have facilities like those

a reply to: jjkenobi

The biggest factor in why people return to prison is background checks.

You know how I know? Because I could have a job right now making 80k a year but I can't do it because of an assault charge from 2008. Yeah I'm an idiot but do I deserve to have a lifetime sentence, no I dont.

I know other people with records that can't support their kids they have to rely on help from their parents.

So when someone commits a crime and goes back its not just because they are a bad person it's because they have been looking for a way out of their situation for years and can't think of anything else to do.

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

But there re offending rate is far lower than the USA.


What works works

it makes perfect since basicaly there making them be productive citizens inside jail

interacting with other people properly to survive working cooking for themselfs and not being hooked on drugs

long term being ina cycle like this it becomes your new norm insted of the cycle of violance and comitting crimes

the way in a us prision is to be violent or die break the ruels or starve its a breeding ground to make criminals

this is a good idea imo

could never be implaminted in the US its just to late we have bred far to many ruthless criminals to try and fix them sad

Halden prison is one of a kind.
Most norwegian prisons are far from that luxurious.
More like this:

The majority of the population lives in small towns of 5,000 or less, plus a few other larger cities. Even the capital only has a population of 600,000 . With the oil industry, there is always work needing to be done. Norway have simply balanced their economy so there are more jobs than workers.

Well the for profit prison in the states is bad and small drug charges leading to prison is bad, lets look at reality.

Our population vs. their pop.

Our number of inner city youths with little to no parenting vs. theirs

I doubt anybody in America goes to prison for holding a little bit of weed. But if have been a criminal since you could run and are on probation/parole and decide to run from the police and get busted with an illegal substance and probably a gun, what the F%^& you supposed to do?

How many community programs do we need? How many jailhouse programs do we need?

The fact is we need jobs. We need to tax the hell out of Wal-mart or anybody bringing in the majority of their goods from overseas until we can rebuild factories here.

Give the kids of today and tomorrow that are not wall street genius' a chance at an honest living.

a reply to: nugget1

You wouldn't be homeless in Norway - they take care of their people even those with mental and physical handicaps.

originally posted by: stormcell---->Norway have simply balanced their economy so there are more jobs than workers.

I don't think so.
There are currently about 96000 unemployed adult people in Norway. And due to unlimited immigration the number increases fast.

originally posted by: Mianeye
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

Your first link was interesting, a high security prison that the guards have no guns was surprising. But what was shocking was the extent they went with the idea of rehabilitation.

Therefore, prisoners like Breivik are given greater contact with prison officers and more opportunities for work, education and other activities. "The idea is to increase contacts with the prison staff who are tasked with keeping him active, doing physical exercise with him, talking to him," Ms Bjercke told the Associated Press news agency. "Isolation is torture."

Though there is much more going on here than rehabilitating, there is a basic respect for human beings.

"I like to put it this way: he's a human being," said Ms Bjercke. "He has human rights. This is about creating a humane prison regime."

source

Prisons with human rights, interesting concept.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

But I want to enjoy watching people suffer for the insolence, plus they hurt my feelings.

a reply to: onequestion

Really we should just shoot criminals, it would save money, lower the population and raise IQ's!

Oh wait LEO's already doing that for us, doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing you being protected,

extreme sarcasm

originally posted by: Dabrazzo
a reply to: Serdgiam

Its funny seeing some peoples comments deriding this system when it is blindingly obvious this works and is clearly better for a society. Some people just dont get it I guess.

Some people are just too consumed with the idea of harsh revenge to understand why this would work. They think fear, pain, and suffering is the only way to teach a lesson. That is what the Christian bible teaches after all, it uses the threat of eternal punishment in hellfire to scare people away from committing sins. The US even still practices executions, clearly they are too consumed with the idea of "getting even" than the idea of rehabilitating offenders. When you throw someone into a cramped cement cell for a long time you can't expect them to change their attitude.

Chances are they will come out of prison even harder and more capable of committing a serious crime. Most criminals were brought up in bad neighborhoods, they had a low quality of life and they adapted the mentality of a criminal due to that low quality of life. US prisons are very disgusting and provide an extremely low quality of life. People eventually act the way you treat them, and if you treat them like a caged animal that is what they will become through a process of demoralization.

a reply to: IWasHereEonsAgo

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

There are a lot of facts missing...what kind of offender uses this type of prison what are their crimes? The murderers rapests, do they all live like this?

As far as i can see NO American prisons are not all appalling, plus freedoms permitted depend on the crimes. Most rooms have a desk, with online computers many have single private rooms. There are weight and workout rooms movies, exercise yards, team sports, 3 meals a day and health care. Many are much better than this picture.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

It is so funny how people miss the point about all of this. It has to do with culture imagine shipping prisoners from Detroit over to Norway...............It would last a couple of hours and they would do exactly what we do.



The culture in Norway is hard work and helping others.

The culture in Detroit is being lazy and helping yourself.

What's that? A facility designed to rehabilitate criminals back into society that actually... does what it was designed to do?

In America, we seem to have forgotten that the punishment is the fact that you are already in prison, separated from friends and family with your freedom taken away, unable to go wherever you want and do whatever you want. No, we seem to feel that is no punishment at all and we keep trying to find more and more extra punishments to heap on top of what was already supposed to be "the punishment"... Taking away freedom does not seem to be enough for us. We want to take away all dignity, respect, and their very humanity, treating them like- no, Worse than animals, much worse, as if their feelings, hopes and dreams do not matter, or rather, as if these things do not exist.

There is a profit motive here. Rehabilitation is not profitable. We want to make sure they come back. I believe owners of privatized "prisons" usually have a contract guaranteeing a certain percentage of their beds are filled at all times. I put "prisons" in quotations because you can't really call it a prison in my opinion when it fulfills an entirely different role than a traditional prison. It does so much more than simply imprison a human being. It essentially destroys a human beings humanity, forever altering the psychology of 99% of all who enter. This becomes obvious once you spend some time around someone fresh out from serving a sentence in an American prison.

Are there worse prisons? Sure, in far less developed, supposedly less "civilized" nations. However, even many of these offer comforts that are rare or unheard of in American prisons. These barbaric nations actually believe in things like, you're go8jg to want to sit down for this... getting married to the person you love, and then spending time alone with them a few times per week. Yes, private time. I know, the horrors, right? I've learned a lot from watching the NatGeo program "Locked Up Abroad". It had a different name before it was picked up by NatGeo. There are many full episodes on youtube.

Currently, only six U.S. states allow prison conjugal visits within their prison systems: California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York and Washington.

crime-punishment.yoexpert.com...

As some have already said in this thread, a big part of the process of rehabilitation and the type of offences the prisoners have committed comes down to the type of society.

Norway, as with the other Nordic countries, are very liberal minded and the societies are like chalk and cheese when compared to the USA, where violent crime and violence in general seem much more prevalent and part of day to day society.
Violence is everywhere, on TV, in the movies, in the music, and society seems to reflect this. I am not simply speaking from a casual observer viewpoint either, but as someone who has spent a large amount of time there over the years.
Violence seems to be a natural reaction to solving any problem, and violence against others is seemingly promoted and supported if it upholds "the American way". Even the prisoners seem to be acting out some Hollywood created fantasy of prison life as a dog eat dog existence of violence against others, to be the top dog "inside".
In some ways, I find American "culture" and society resembles more and more a media and Hollywood created caricature of real life.

Sadly, those calmer, more civilized cultures seem to be under assault, through rampant immigration, and the demands of outside influences. Thus, whilst the Norwegian penal system has had such a good track record of rehabilitation so far, I can see it changing and higher security being needed as less civilized and more violent offenders infiltrate their society.

a reply to: Viking9019

You are sickened in what way? Migraines because you can't comprehend that all of these people will return to society and won't feel that they don't belong?

It's why they don't go back to prison. They WANT to be NORWEGIANS. That's because they have always known their fellow citizens have their back. They are not socially retarded and neither are is their government.

I figure you for.....put something really. really terrible here....., a person who thinks that punishment makes for better people. You will never be dissuaded from this concept, no matter how little objective support can be found.