

To Solve Prison Crowding, Norway Goes Dutch - prostoalex
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-18/norway-exports-inmates-to-netherlands-to-solve-prison-crowding#r=read

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gnud
Every time anyone (inside Norway or outside) discuss our prisons, they feel
they have to mention that the cells have flat-screen TVs.

Well, duh, of course they do. A simple flat-screen TV is the easiest and
cheapest to order, service and replace.

~~~
haakon
It's always strange to see "flat-screen TV" talked about as if it were some
sort of luxury item and most people can only afford CRT TVs.

~~~
dspillett
It is often used (in the UK at least) in reference to people on benefits, by
certain publications. The implication being that some of those benefits we've
paid our taxes to provide have been wasted as they have a new item instead of
making do with a cheap hand-me-down.

No reference is made to if the subject being discussed owned the item before
they were on unemployment (and related) benefit, and of course these days a
hand-me-down is likely to be a flat screen unit anyway.

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qwerta
Norway is flush with oil money. But it is not THAT expensive. Their prisons
are about 6x more expensive compared to US prisons. If US would reduce their
prison population to reasonable levels, you would have the same standard
easily.

Norway:

> The cost of maintaining prisoners at Halden costs about $500 per inmate per
> night. ($500*365 = $185 000 per year)

[http://theweek.com/article/index/228229/the-jail-where-
every...](http://theweek.com/article/index/228229/the-jail-where-every-
prisoner-gets-a-flat-screen-tv-and-private-shower)

US:

> The average inmate in minimum-security federal prison costs $21,000 each
> year. The average inmate in maximum-security federal prisons costs $33,000
> each year.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/13/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/13/wonkbook-11-facts-
about-americas-prison-population/)

~~~
gahahaha
It wouldn't cost 6x as much to have Norwegian standard prisons in the US
because prices/salaries are quite a bit lower. Also, the fact that the US if
effing huge would mean that economies of scale would bring down the price even
further.

On the other hand - widespread poverty to an extent that is completely unknown
in Norway - would mean that US prisons can't be _too_ nice, or they would be
more attractive than life on the outside. (I don't know if this concern is a
real problem, but it's worth mention it)

~~~
draugadrotten
> more attractive than life on the outside.

Norway and Sweden have cold winters and warm prisons. It is somewhat common
for clever bums to commit crimes (theft, burglary) in the fall that they know
will give them a 4-6 month prison sentence. This is perfect timing to get to
spend the winter in a warm prison with hot showers and a gym, and then get
released just in time when the weather is good enough to sleep outdoors again.

~~~
ArnoVanLumig
If that happened at scale it's unlikely that Norway would still have among the
lowest recidivism rates in the world. It may happen occasionally, but saying
it's "somewhat common" has to be an overstatement.

~~~
draugadrotten
I have no numbers of scale, but it's an acknowledged problem.

(Public Swedish radio for reference Use google translate and read
[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=105&arti...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=105&artikel=2698205)
\-- 5 of 17 known addicts in a small town are in prison by their own choice)

That said, I strongly believe that the "soft" prisons of Scandinavia is better
for society than US prisons. Recidivism is one of the important measurement.

~~~
vidarh
It does _not_ say that 5 of them are in prison by their own choice. It says
that 5 of them are in prison.

Further, the article is very confused. It talks about prison (fängelse) some
places, and jail other places (häkte) without acknowledging the big difference
(häkte would imply someone has been placed under arrest and put in jail
pending a trial and sentencing, but most would be let out after the decision
of whether or not to press charges have been made, possibly the next morning).

That some may seek to get arrested and put in a jail cell on particularly cold
nights (häkte) without worrying about the risk of charges and prison, may be
possible, especially for a drug addict who might be making a decision like
that in an impaired state.

But it is _very_ different from trying to guess and time a prison sentence.

------
JonoBB
> The goal is to rehabilitate the country’s roughly 3,600 prisoners ...

3600 prisoners in a population of around 5m? This is somewhat incredible in
its own right.

~~~
easytiger
Just for context

norway population / 3600 = 1388

ireland population / 3,892 = 1203

uk population / 85,493 = 743

usa population / 1,574,741 = 208

\--So the ratio is worse than the USA and prob doesn't mean too much.--

 _edit_ Completely misunderstood my own numbers... moving too quick. Will
leave here

~~~
ErikHuisman
How is one in every 1388 people worse than one in every 208?

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3838
i was in oslo & amsterdam recently and the difference in junkie on the street
levels was staggering - much much higher in oslo where drug laws are harsher.

i imagine this is a reasonable factor in amounts of prisoners in the two
countries, though haven't checked data on percentage of prisoners who are
heroin addicts.

~~~
tallanvor
I have no idea what crimes the Oslo police are actually focusing on, but drugs
seem to be on the absolute bottom of their list. It would be one thing if they
didn't have the resources to respond to every call about a witnessed drug
deal, but they won't even send someone out to collect the drugs when they're
told where the dealers are hiding them! At least they could get some of the
drugs off the streets that way.

~~~
mrborgen
Actually, they do focus on this from time to time, busting a lot of dealers
and drug addicts. This normally happens when the area they dealers/addicts
occupy becomes too annoying for the public.

However, it doesn't solve anything. It just spreads the drug addicts and
dealers around the city for a while, making drugs available everywhere instead
of just around the "junkie area".

And then when the police stops busting people, a new "junkie area" appears.

Until it all repeats again..

~~~
3838
part of how that was tackled in holland was that if an addict was arrested
they were offered a choice between being charged or going into treatment - and
they may have also been banned from the junkie area (normally people are
arrested if they violate this kind of ban)

~~~
mrborgen
That sounds like a very good practice. Much better than here. However, there
aren't enough political will to do something like that here.. The bars for
getting into treatment, especially with "replacement drugs" are way to high.

------
blueskin_
I remember when I first saw a picture of a Norwegian prison, all the comments
were along the lines of "that has things my home doesn't". Obviously, people
were so impressed they headed to Norway to get arrested.

~~~
mercurial
Meanwhile, in France, prisons are 20% over capacity and have the highest
suicide rate in Europe. Maybe the EU should do something about that and impose
EU-wide standards closer to the Norwegian model.

~~~
tormeh
I'm more curious about the Dutch. How come so few are in prison? What are they
doing right? Imposing one successful country's standards EU-wide would be a
short-term improvement, but we would lose whatever the Dutch are doing right,
though it might just be drug laws and not prisons per se. Diversity allows for
policy experimentation.

~~~
unhammer
The Netherlands have a comparable prison population to Norway:

[http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/netherlands](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/netherlands)
75/100,000

[http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway)
72/100,000

However, Norway has less prisons. That's why they want to "export people", not
because there are so many prisoners on a world scale.

(The US is also on that site: [http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-
states-america](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america) )

