
How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours - jentulman
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48885846
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vikingcaffiene
I’ve read about this place on several different occasions. It fits with my
world view of what criminal justice reform should look like.

Sadly, in the US (where I live) this would never fly. We are a people of
violence and revenge and want those who’ve done us wrong to suffer. It doesn’t
matter that it perpetuates a cycle. Even if a miracle happened and a place
like this was brought into existence, some politician would start using it to
score cheap shots. “Look what $party_name is doing! Sending rapists and
murderers to a health spa!! I’m TOUGH on crime! I’ll end this!!”

I suppose I would have a hard time swallowing someone who killed a love one of
mine getting to do yoga in the woods too. Dunno.

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MarkMc
_Norway also has the world’s lowest recidivism rate at 20 percent, while
America sees 75 percent of its prisoners re-offend within five years of
release._ [0]

It's interesting that in the U.S. many people champion the power of incentives
to produce goods and services efficiently yet are blind to the perverse
incentives of having privately-run prisons. Of course a corporation whose
profit comes from running prisons does not want to reduce the recidivism rate.

[0] [https://www.encartele.net/2018/04/what-can-us-
correctional-f...](https://www.encartele.net/2018/04/what-can-us-correctional-
facilities-learn-from-scandinavian-jails/)

~~~
siruncledrew
20% is still higher than I expected for Norway’s system, but I suppose there’s
tons of factors contributing to recidivism.

There’s so many possible avenues a person could take to commit crimes that
send them to jail. I think it’s worth using prison as a way to psychologically
investigate what lead people to crime or recidivism, and try to understand
crime from micro and macro levels more. Like some kind of criminal science
retrospective that goes beyond solving a crime, and also provides a meta post-
crime analysis. Of course, this isn’t perfect either and probably will receive
privacy and medical qualms, but I also don’t know of a definitive answer about
what a realistic hope is to reach for concerning criminal justice. As far as
human history goes back, there has always been crime and it has always sucked.

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steve19
I tried to find the recidivism rate of criminals who serve time in US Federal
prison camps (lowest security federal prisons). Does anyone know how to find
it?

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badrabbit
Bit of an unpopular opinion here: either you have a criminal correction system
or a justice system or a hybrid of the two. My unpopular opinion is that if
justice is to be administered in any shape or form it supersedes the need to
correct a criminal.

I am sure many here will agree with "Ends don't justify means". That goes both
ways,the end goal of rehabilitating a criminal does not justify the means.

To me justice means to correct a wrong done. Someone did some wrong therefore
a fairly measured punishment is given so that the wrong doer suffers and/or
makes up for their wrong actions. It is this idea that when someone commits a
wrong they are indebted for that wrong. It does not have to be a criminal
situation, when you see someone suffer and offer help, you saw wrong and
attempted to correct it,you attempted to administer justice even though there
was no criminal.

Now, a debt can be forgiven but it must be explicit. I understand and can
accept mercy being shown to anyone. The core of my disagreement here is
portrayal of justice to mean correction and rehabilitation of the wrongdoer.
In the eyes of justice, the debt being paid is all that counts. If
rehabilitation is a priority to a society, mercy needs to be explicitly
shown,it should not be done in a way that waters down justice to where we say
"you owe this much but due to the end result we will only accept so much
repayment of wrongs from you",you're saying the unpaid debt is ignored,not
forgiven. if there is a victim,the victim should also have a say.

I hope I wasn't all over the place with my comment. All in all, I am mostly
displeased with the end result being the focus here. I do need good neighbors
but not at the cost of graying-down justice.

~~~
imtringued
That's just selfish thinking. Your type of thinking breaks down as soon as
someone innocent is punished. At that point it's just about having an axe to
grind.

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cybersnowflake
The ugly truth is a lot of 'benefits' of the scandanavian approach come from a
highly (for now) homogenous society and an extreme reluctance to imprison or
even pursue certain crimes that would be unacceptable anywhere else. Combined
with being caught hiding data such as demographic information I'd take any
fellation of scandanavian policy with a grain of salt. I assume the community
here considers themselves logically minded so just ask yourself this. If this
approach is as miraculous as its put forth to be why hasn't it ever reached as
widespread implementation not just in evil America but anywhere in the world?
The concept of rehabilitative imprisonment is almost as old as imprisonment
itself.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Yet when similar approaches have been trialled in the UK, they worked just as
well. When you consider the cost per year of imprisonment recidivism and
rehabilitation should the main priority. Homogeneity is not required.

The whole "tough on crime" headlines and media campaigns in certain sections
of the media, and certain shades of politics are the _cause_ of much of our
problem with overcrowded and brutal prisons. Tough sentencing _does not work._
It's been demonstrated decade after decade. It flies well for voters seeking
vengeance. The same voters who'd probably bring back hanging tomorrow if there
were a referendum. That's _not_ justice.

~~~
cybersnowflake
Okay why hasn't this revolutionized the entire UK prison system and why
haven't they bought yachts and luxurious hunting cabins for all their
murderers and rapists if this is both drastically cheaper and more effective?
Why hasn't this been adapted in the same way as fully anywhere in the world
except Scandinavia? I mean officials do what they want when deciding not to
execute or give elective surgery to felons or needles to druggies despite what
the public thinks but this is a line they won't cross despite the supposed
mountain of evidence? And its not like rehabilitation, even fairly generous
rehabilitation isn't a concept thats been tried for centuries.

~~~
DanBC
> Okay why hasn't this revolutionized the entire UK prison system

But it is quietly revolutionising the UK prison system. We've had Conservative
politicians saying that prisons don't work and that we need a different
approach.

As with everything that got shelved because Brexit.

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rofo1
> "In Norway, the punishment is just to take away someone's liberty. The other
> rights stay. Prisoners can vote, they can have access to school, to health
> care; they have the same rights as any Norwegian citizen. Because inmates
> are human beings. They have done wrong, they must be punished, but they are
> still human beings." > "In Norway, all will be released - there are no life
> sentences," he reminds me.

Really? Even with this low recidivism rate, I find this hard to accept
somehow.

I don't even think deranged people like serial killers and pedophile rapists
can change.

Even if they could theoretically change, why would we accept them back in
society and spend any resources on them after they did that?

That doesn't make us more human. We are redefining 'humanity' to match our
politics. But we have evolved over millions of years. Those two things can't
coexist.

(edit: removed a paragraph, it was kinda OT)

~~~
matthewmacleod
There are no life sentences; this does not mean that individuals can’t be
detained indefinitely. If a prisoner is not judged fit for release, their
sentence can be extended by up to I think four or five years at a time. The
Norwegian prison system isn’t releasing flocks of “serial killers and
paedophile rapists” as a result of not imposing life sentences at conviction.

~~~
kazen44
Also, i don't know if norway has the same kind of system (i assume it does.
Most western european nations have this). but "terbeschikkingstelling"(TBS) is
usually a punishment for people with severe issues like serial killers.

see:
[https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terbeschikkingstelling_(Nederl...](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terbeschikkingstelling_\(Nederlands_strafrecht\))

~~~
sombremesa
Link for English speakers:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment)

