
The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people - netvarun
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people
======
wutbrodo
It looks like the Norwegians have gotten over the fundamental problem that we
have in the States (and presumably in other countries): the idea that people
should be made to suffer for perceived transgressions even if it costs the
rest of society more (and yes, I do mean after accounting for the accompanied
reduction of the undesired behavior by making an example of offenders).

Apparently we're too primitive to get beyond the juvenile practice of cutting
off our nose to spite our face, and it informs our drug policy, the way we
deal with the homeless, our prison system, our views on social welfare, etc.

~~~
JackFr
I imagine I might agree with you on many things -- there is much to be admired
in this Norwegian system and an there is much to be lamented in the US system.
However you lose me when you say 'perceived transgressions'. The
transgressions are real -- you might think that certain drug laws are injust
(I certainly do) but the transgression is not simply perceived. And certainly
I'll grant you that people have been wrongly convicted -- but that is a very
small part of the prison population.

That being said, our prisons aim to punish, incapacitate and rehabilitate.
Punishment is a legitimate role for society; it is not juvenile.

~~~
hackinthebochs
> Punishment is a legitimate role for society; it is not juvenile.

What's your rationale for this? Personally I can't agree. I can see the logic
behind punishment-as-deterrent (but then it creates perverse incentives), but
punishment as an end goal itself isn't an appropriate concern for society.

~~~
greedo
So, imagine a violent crime; a robbery attempt goes awry, and a convenience
store clerk is killed. The murderer (in a perfect incarceration system) is
"rehabilitated" in a year. Should he be freed after 365 days?

~~~
draugadrotten
> _So, imagine a violent crime; a robbery attempt goes awry, and a convenience
> store clerk is killed. The murderer (in a perfect incarceration system) is
> "rehabilitated" in a year. Should he be freed after 365 days?_

I read about a case like this in Sweden. Kjell-Eric Eliasson, who was a
soldier at the time, was sentenced in 1986 for a sadistic murder of a young
single mother. He butchered her and dumped the corpse into a well outside his
mother's farm.

The man was sentenced to a mental institution. He was treated for a single (1)
year and then released to as "cured", much to the horror of the relatives of
the murdered woman. Some 25 years later, in 2010, he lost his job as a highly
paid government official, when the truth about his dark past hit the internet.

Was it right to release him? It seems he lived the next 25 years well, with a
great career and paying his taxes. So society didn't need to be protected from
him any more. But was it morally right? There is a perceived need of revenge,
of punishment. Of some _justice_.

\--

Details of the case are here (use google translate to read)
[https://www.flashback.org/t1287612](https://www.flashback.org/t1287612)

~~~
hackinthebochs
Justice is just a fancy word we use to mask that what we really seek is "eye
for an eye" retribution. We can and should attempt to move to a more
enlightened view. Society should definitely not be meting out retribution.

------
masklinn
> anything up to the 21-year maximum sentence (Norway has no death penalty or
> life sentence)

One thing has to be noted every time: Norway has no life sentence (well it
does, for the military) (and it has a 30 years sentence for crimes against
humanity as required by the Rome Statute) but it has _forvaring_ , "preventive
detention".

It is _indeterminate length_ sentence tacked onto initial 21 years, which
translates into the ability to extend the imprisonment by increments of 5
years if the prisoner is still considered a danger to society. The prisoner
can petition for parole every year during forvaring, but there is no limit to
the possibility of extension, so forvaring effectively allows for life in
prison.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
This is good because in effect it can be life in prison, but the case is
revised every X years - as opposed to being sentenced to life in prison
beforehand, then making a lawyer rich trying to make a judge revisit your
case.

~~~
scott_s
People sentenced to life in prison don't typically have the means to make a
lawyer rich.

~~~
tomohawk
That's not where their pay usually comes from.

------
ianstallings
I've never been to prison but years ago I went to jail in the US for violent
acts and weapon charges and wouldn't wish that on anyone. My co-defendant in
the trial was charged with greater crimes and did 8 years in prison out of 13.
I went to visit the guy about once a month and I can say one thing for certain
- he will never be the same. And not in a good way.

I know a lot of guys like him. The US prison system is not worried about
rehabilitation. It's about punishment and removal from society, regardless of
how you come out. It's a terrible place meant to scare the crap out of you and
that's basically it. And now it's one big industry.

~~~
shawndumas
has that experience served as a deterrent for you in any way?

~~~
ianstallings
Yes definitely. I was a different person back then but that experience in
particular helped change me. I fear going to jail now more than before I ever
went in. The sheer boredom of it all is enough to drive you mad. Concrete
walls, hard metal beds, lights never go off, constant yelling, just enough
food to make sure you don't starve, and of course the other inmates that are
all criminals and a lot are willing to commit violence to get their way.
You've haven't seen the true depths of human depravity until you see two grown
men try to kill each other because one wanted to watch a different soap opera
or sought revenge for some supposed sleight. And I had it _easy_ compared to
prison or the penitentiary.

~~~
shawndumas
In my misspent youth I got into an altercation that escalated to the point of
me being charged with attempted manslaughter[1].

The police picked me up late on a Friday and I spent the weekend in a Nassau
county jail. It changed my life...

When I hear people dismiss the power of deterrence it makes me realize they
don't have the particular category of cognition that was thrust upon me by my
own impulsiveness. Seems like you have a similar context as I -- now may we
both never lose it.

\----

[1]: yes; attempted manslaughter -- in New York Penal Law, "Attempt" is a
separate article that can be applied to any crime: "§110.00 -- Attempt to
commit a crime. A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime when, with
intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which tends to effect the
commission of such crime."

~~~
rainforest
Extending your anecdotal case, doesn't this mean that prison isn't a deterrent
at all until one has committed a crime and experienced it?

~~~
shawndumas
firstly; jail and prison are two different things. secondly, it's a spectrum;
different people are deterred at different points and some not at all.

------
dmix
There's a movement in some law circles towards "Restorative Justice" which I
think is even more forward thinking than Norway's prison system. It focuses on
the victims interests instead of the governments (imagine this applied to
Aaron Swartz).

> Restorative justice (also sometimes called reparative justice) is an
> approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the
> offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract
> legal principles or punishing the offender.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice)

~~~
jackmaney
0_o Focusing on the needs of the offenders? Really? Why?!

"Your Honor, I did burn down that orphanage, but I really need a new car. And
prison is too punitive!"

~~~
00rion
I would say the focus is more on the offenders' enlightened self interest. Not
everyone is aware of the best course of action given a situation. That goes
for both offenders and the people who have decided to perpetuate our punitive
prison system.

------
anbu32
Norway doesn't really have a permanent criminal class, and the main aim of the
criminal justice system is to keep it that way. Whereas the US (and many
others) have an enormous criminal social class, firmly-rooted criminal
organizations seemingly in a prepetual state of war with law enforcement, and
so on. That stuff isn't going away even if you did liberal prison reform. The
circumstances are very different, maybe it's appropriate that the aims and
methods of law enforcement are too?

~~~
6d0debc071
They're not going away without doing liberal prison reform either.

#

I honestly don't see how much good can come of the current setup. Maybe that
say more about me than it does about the setup - but what good can come from
brutalising these people?

When you try to use pain to make someone comply, the underlying message is
that when they start complying the pain will stop. But ex-cons are effectively
black-listed from most respectable jobs, they generally have very little by
way of life skills, their social network is generally tied to criminals,
there's no real welfare system to speak of to support them.

The pain doesn't sound like it really stops, changes intensity maybe.
Meanwhile there's lots of relatively easy money to be made from drugs, slavery
and the like.... I suspect you need a very strong character to work your way
up decently from that sort of starting position - I just don't see how
effectively torturing people would give them that.

------
kghose
I'm sure we have a country like Norway somewhere in the United States. Perhaps
New Hampshire? Just like we have a country in these United States to match any
small European country whose statistics are brought forward to push some kind
of social agenda.

~~~
tazjin
Hej from Sweden! Find me a US state (or area with equivalent population) with

\- national health care (dental might be exempted, but still capped after a
certain amount)

\- stable, cheap, state-subsidized public transport with great coverage

\- school system equivalent to Sweden (though Sweden does arguably not have
the best one in Europe I still encounter many shocking things when speaking to
Americans)

\- included in that: ability to go to university without being in debt for the
rest of your life / without scholarships / without rich family

\- clean cities, low crime rates, low to non-existent amount of guns in
circulation

\- widespread atheism, embracing science

\- widespread high bandwidth, affordable internet access

I could list more things but I think this is enough for now. I'm not saying
that all of these are without flaws or that we are the best at them, but the
US lacking so many of these in a widespread manner makes me not consider it a
first world country.

 _Edit_ : I forgot a big one!

\- Employment security: No unfair terminations, regulated pay,
overtime/nightshift/weekend pay regulated ...

 _Edit 2_ : This is in response to a "dead" comment I got. In case you've got
show-dead disabled here's the comment

"..And where your tax rate is up to 60% of your income.
[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/nov/16/sweden-tax-
burd...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/nov/16/sweden-tax-burd...") \-
polaris9000

Yes, our tax rates are much higher but that's not the whole story. If you
compare average personal income between Sweden and the US (I couldn't find a
source on median income) you have approximately 10k USD more in net-income in
the US. I'm not an expert in finances so I won't try to adjust this for things
like the gap between poor&rich (which would pull the US down a bit).

How much of these 10k are gone after spending them on all the things we get
delivered through our taxes? (Health care, subsidised public transport,
education and so on)

And one thing that doesn't directly affect everybody's life quality: How much
better is our infrastructure (paid for / subsidised by taxes)? I'm speaking
about everything ranging from streets to power grids to internet connections.

How much more stability do we have in our lives and how much better is the
average life satisfaction?

I'm sure there is no canonical answer to any of these but I'm also sure that
Sweden scores better on average (and remember that this was originally about
Norway, which is doing much better than Sweden)

~~~
jquery
> but the US lacking so many of these in a widespread manner makes me not
> consider it a first world country.

Cute. The inferiority complex is palpable. You create very specific custom
goalposts for being a first-world country and then you just happen to meet
them. Cheers mate, congrats on making your small nation a good place to live.
Don't be so insecure.

~~~
Dewie
If that is a sign of an inferiority complex, what is American
Exceptionalism[0] a sign of?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism)

~~~
thedufer
Quoting that article:

> the term does not necessarily imply superiority

Those for whom the term does imply superiority lie largely on the right,
politically speaking, while those on HN lie largely on the left, in my
experience. It seems to me that there is a difference between calling someone
out on an inferiority complex, and calling someone out on sharing a country
with people who have an inferiority complex.

~~~
Dewie
The term itself suggests superiority, by using the word "exceptional". That
isn't a word reserved for comparing different things that are different but
not objectively better or worse.

> It seems to me that there is a difference between calling someone out on an
> inferiority complex, and calling someone out on sharing a country with
> people who have an inferiority complex.

And that person didn't say that he's from the US, for that matter. But you can
read a personal attack into it if you want.

------
chestnut-tree
This is a really insightful article into Norway's prison system. I wish it had
also gathered opinions from the victims of crime. I presume there is broad
support among the Norwegian population for the length of sentencing.

In the UK, the press often goads the public with stories of "soft" sentencing.
The article mentions a young man serving 11 years for murder. That pain will
last a lifetime for the family of the murdered person. If I wondered if I
could accept a sentence of 11 years as suitable punishment for the murderer?
Would I be so bitter and angry that I'd wish for more? (Yes, I know this is
why we have courts to make judgements).

------
pinaceae
not an easy topic though.

some crimes are easier to stomach than others. some sentences are not meant to
help the person going to prison, but protecting the population from that very
person.

the lax practices in western europe have led to numerous cases where prisoners
where able to rape/kill people while they were on "prison vacations", in
german called "freigang". very often an expert psychatrist had deemed the
prisoner to be stable and reformed.

a guy in austria has just killed 3 policemen plus 1 ambulance driver. if he
doesn't kill himself (standoff is still ongoing) - what exactly is there to
reform? 4 people are dead, the lives of their families are forever impacted by
this. why should the assailant have any right to return to society? he decided
to deny this right to 4 direct victims.

should marc dutroux ever go free? breivik? why do they need to be reformed?
should the gangrapers in India go free?

the victims and their families should come first. you rape, kill, maim?
consciously? ok, face the consequences. this reformation BS is ignoring the
plight of the victims and their families.

~~~
hrkristian
I recently kayaked around Bastoy (prison), it's a great place; nice beaches;
great view on all sides; rapists and axe murderers shuttling to or from places
on their bikes. Does sound like I'm making a joke doesn't it? It's not, it's
how it is and I like it and am proud of it.

For cases like Breivik we have forced psychiatric admission, which can be a
life-sentence. In fact this was the key point of the Breivik case: Whether he
was in a psychotic state of mind, and even more importantly, whether his
extreme (religious) views could be deemed delusional.

Revenge is barbaric, and granted some degree of barbarism simply exists within
all of us, some more than others. The court system shouldn't be based around
barbarism, and the american use of "justice" really is just a synonym for
revenge. Pure and simple. I don't want this. I don't want to live in a country
where our flaws doom us, where mistakes are never forgiven.

Norwegians live in a country where all the money in the world cannot have a
man (legally) killed or sentenced to life. Norwegians live in a country where
men and women who take wrong turns in their life are given the opportunity to
redeem themselves (and they do, almost always.)

I live here, I love it here, and I love it for reasons US citizens see in
movies, but not in society.

~~~
greedo
"Norwegians live in a country where men and women who take wrong turns in
their life are given the opportunity to redeem themselves (and they do, almost
always.)"

Redemption? Or lack of recidivism? The former is hard to quantify, the latter
claim is lacking attribution.

[EDIT] for a typo...

------
jonnathanson
Just crunching some numbers here, and these are rough estimates, presented
without comment:

\- Norway: 4,000 prisoners / 5M population (0.08% incarceration)

\- United Kingdom: 84,000 prisoners / 63M pop. (0.13%)

\- United States: 2,270,000 prisoners / 317M pop. (0.72%)

The US prison population rises to about 7M when you include everyone "under
correctional supervision" (e.g., in probation, on parole, in jail, etc.),
increasing to a >2% figure. But I don't have apples-to-apples figures for the
UK and Norway in this regard.

~~~
vacri
The usual way to refer to incarcerated population is per 100k population.

Norway is around 70/100k, 'first world' countries in general are around
70-150/100k, New Zealand is an outlier at 200/100k and the US is an extreme
outlier at ~720/100k. The US really is way out of step with its contemporaries
on this issue.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)

~~~
jonnathanson
Got it, thanks for the clarification. But either way, the US looks pretty bad
on this metric.

------
zeidrich
Prisoners are people. Thus, the question becomes, how do we treat our people?

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Someone who rapes your wife and stabs her is no longer a person but a
primitive animal. A man who has reverted to a baboon and devolved.

Grouping everyone together sounds nice and mushy and makes you look like a
good hearted person but is unrealistic.

~~~
vacri
_Grouping everyone together_

You just implied that all inmates are rapists and stabbers. Herein lies the
problem of the anti-rehabilitation crowd: they argue against rehabilitating
prisoners using the worst examples they can find, ignoring that most prisoners
don't fit their description.

------
NovemberWest
Well, America still doesn't deal with non-inmate populations humanely, so we
have quite a ways to go.

------
jstalin
This article digs up the age old question: is imprisonment intended to punish
or to protect society? Or a little of both?

~~~
Karunamon
I'd always thought of it as kind of being both. You don't need to subject
inmates to the equivalent of torture and humiliation in order for them to
become institutionalized, to fall behind on the world around them, to disrupt
their careers and family ties.

Those things alone are pretty terrible. And that's before you get into the
whole "solitary confinement/tacitly accepted rape/etc" things that plague
prisons.

~~~
scott_karana
I personally think those things are pretty terrible, but someone without a
family, a steady career, and who is already behind the curve (out of work,
remember?) might not particularly mind losing those liberties.

------
richardlblair
The thing I love most about this, is that it shows they still hold faith in
human kind. They sincerely believe they can help people change, and people are
changing.

This is a seriously heart warming story.

------
at-fates-hands
The statistic mentioned in the article for recidivism was around 16% "the
lowest in Europe"

That's interesting considering the US had the same rate in 2007 and we have
treat our criminals completely different. This would lead me to believe
treating criminals like people isn't the key to successful punishment and
eventual rehabilitation.

"During 2007, a total of 1,180,469 persons on parole were at-risk of
reincarceration. This includes persons under parole supervision on January 1
or those entering parole during the year. Of these parolees, about 16% were
returned to incarceration in 2007."

source:
[http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17](http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17)

~~~
nerfhammer
Isn't that the % of people breaking parole, not the total recidivism rate?

Elsewhere:

> recidivism rates between 1994 and 2007 have consistently remained around 40
> percent.

[http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Repor...](http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/sentencing_and_corrections/State_Recidivism_Revolving_Door_America_Prisons%20.pdf)

~~~
JackFr
That article is one of the most thoughtful I've read -- at its heart it is not
a simple or obvious problem.

"For example, why do Wyoming and Oregon have the lowest overall recidivism
rates for offenders released in 2004, and why do Minnesota and California have
the highest? Why does North Carolina return relatively few ex-offenders to
prison for technical violations of their parole, but reincarcerate a
comparatively large proportion for new crimes? What drove the recidivism rate
down by 22.1 percent in Kansas between 1999 and 2004, and what drove it up
34.9 percent in South Dakota during the same time period?"

"Florida and New York began the twenty-first century with nearly the same size
prison population (about 70,000 inmates). During the ensuing decade, Florida
added 30,000 inmates and now has more than 100,000 persons behind bars.
Meanwhile, New York’s prison population fell below 60,000. Yet the crime rate
dropped in both states by about the same rate. In fact, New York’s crime drop
was slightly larger (29.2 percent) compared with Florida’s (28.2 percent)."

------
ffrryuu
And the American inner city streets where people are treated like savages.

------
laichzeit0
This would never work in South Africa for example. The conditions of such a
prison are orders of magnitude better than what half the population have at
home. Just having food, a bed and a flushing toilet would be a step up.
Everyone would be lining up to go to prison :)

~~~
prawn
I don't think the equivalent in South Africa would necessarily have the same
standard of living, but the emphasis on work opportunities, integration, etc
would likely be emulated.

------
icecreampain
Can't speak for Norway, but I imagine is as being about as lax as Swedish
prisons: here the "prisoners", if you may call them such, even though they are
murderers, assualters and other kinds of violent criminals, have better
accommodations and food than the elderly. And school children.

(Better as in: more money is spent per prisoner than per child or senior in
government care [1]).

Also, prisoners are given free health care and dental work, something that
"free" Swedes have to pay for. Coincidentally, illegal aliens are also given
free dental work (they pay 5$ per appointment).

Something is seriously wrong with Sweden when criminals are taken care of
better than [law-abiding] citizens.

1) [http://www.pitea-tidningen.se/nyheter/varfor-far-fangarna-
ba...](http://www.pitea-tidningen.se/nyheter/varfor-far-fangarna-battre-mat-
an-skoleleverna-6052081-default.aspx)

~~~
dalke
You can't seriously expect that link to be meaningful. These were questions
asked by 11-13 years olds to local politicians. There's no actual analysis
there, and the only mention of money spent on prisoners is:

"Varför får fångarna på fängelser bättre mat än oss i skolan? frågade John
Edin." \-- "Why do the prisoners in prison get better food than we do in
school? asked John Edin"

The response by the local politician Christer Lindström was:

"Jag har ingen aning om vad internernas mat kostar. Men i skolan kostar en
portion 30-35 kronor. Det är ointressant vad andras mat kostar, det viktiga är
vad vi erbjuder." \-- "I don't have a clue on what the internees' food costs.
But in school a portion costs 30-35 kronor. The cost of others' foods isn't
interesting, the important thing is what we offer."

So from that dialog we don't know: 1) is John Edin correct? 2) what does
"better" mean? and 3) is the price difference unreasonable?

Regarding the last, children on average over the 12 or so years of school need
fewer calories than adults, so I would expect that less money is spent per
person in feeding a child than an adult.

As for "criminals are taken care of better than [law-abiding] citizens" ..
okay, that's where I know you're being deliberately obtuse.

How good is the public road system for the criminals? How good is the mass
transit system? How much parental leave time do criminals get, and how much
are they paid for it? Do prisoners get paid sick leave? And so on through a
long list of public services that prisoners don't get or can't use.

Or more concisely, why not also complain that prisoners get free housing, free
food, and free heat, while law-abiding citizens have to pay for those
themselves?

------
amerika_blog
What works for a tiny ethnically homogenous country situated in the far north
might just work for ANYONE!

Or, not.

