Why Scandinavian Prisons Are Superior

[OrbitalDawn]

'Open' prisons, in which detainees are allowed to live like regular citizens, should be a model for the U.S.

Suomenlinna Island has hosted an “open” prison since 1971. The 95 male prisoners leave the prison grounds each day to do the township’s general maintenance or commute to the mainland for work or study. Serving time for theft, drug trafficking, assault, or murder, all the men here are on the verge of release. Cellblocks look like dorms at a state university. Though worse for wear, rooms feature flat-screen TVs, sound systems, and mini-refrigerators for the prisoners who can afford to rent them for prison-labor wages of 4.10 to 7.3 Euros per hour ($5.30 to $9.50). With electronic monitoring, prisoners are allowed to spend time with their families in Helsinki. Men here enjoy a screened barbecue pit, a gym, and a dining hall where prisoners and staff eat together. Prisoners throughout Scandinavia wear their own clothes. Officers wear navy slacks, powder-blue shirts, nametags and shoulder bars; but they carry no batons, handcuffs, Tasers or pepper-spray. The assistant warden who has led Linda and me around, Timo, looks like a wizened roadie: graying beard, black vest and jeans, red shirt, biker boots, and a taste for slim cigars.

One might wonder just where is the “prison” part of this Scandinavian open prison. Where are the impenetrable barriers? The punishing conditions that satisfy an American sense of justice?

First, an important caveat: Nordic prisons are not all open facilities. Closed prisons here date to the mid-19th century, copied from Philadelphia’s Eastern State, or New York’s Auburn, back when those prisons represented models of humane treatment. To an American eye, these prisons look like prisons: 10-meter walls, cameras, steel doors. I’ve heard men describe Scandinavian closed-prison conditions in ways that echo those of the American prison where I have led a writing workshop since 2006: officials intent on making life onerous, long hours in lockup, arbitrarily enforced rules.

Yet inside the four high-security prisons I’ve visited in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, common areas included table tennis, pool tables, steel darts, and aquariums. Prisoner art ornamented walls painted in mild greens and browns and blues. But the most profound difference is that correctional officers fill both rehabilitative and security roles. Each prisoner has a “contact officer” who monitors and helps advance progress toward return to the world outside—a practice introduced to help officers avoid the damage experienced by performing purely punitive functions: stress, hypertension, alcoholism, suicide, and other job-related hazards that today plague American corrections officers, who have an average life expectancy of 59.

This is all possible because, throughout Scandinavia, criminal justice policy rarely enters political debate. Decisions about best practices are left to professionals in the field, who are often published criminologists and consult closely with academics. Sustaining the barrier between populist politics and results-based prison policy are media that don’t sensationalize crime—if they report it at all. And all of this takes place in nations with established histories of consensual politics, relatively small and homogenous populations, and the best social service networks in the world, including the best public education. Standing outside a Nordic closed prison, the American son would have felt perfectly at ease. But inside, northern Europe’s closed facilities operate along the lines of humanism that American prisons abandoned early, under a host of pressures -- such as overcrowding, the push to make prisons profitable by contracting out collective labor, the use of unpaid prisoners as private farmhands, and, since 1973, the rise of an $80 billion mass incarceration industry. There is also the matter of scale. The prison population of Sweden (6,900) is less than half the population of Rikers Island at its height (14,000). Several prisons in the U.S. each hold nearly twice the prison population of Finland. This is not simply the difference between large and much smaller countries. U.S. incarceration rates are the highest in the world, about 10 times those throughout Scandinavia, which are among the world’s lowest.

Much more in the link.

 

[nfbs]

Increase the number of prisoners 100 fold in the same space and see what happens.

 

[Fudzy]

Increase the number of prisoners 100 fold in the same space and see what happens.

Exactly, imagine that in Europe.

 

[STS]

I've seen this somewhere before.

Oh yes

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Increase the number of prisoners 100 fold in the same space and see what happens.

Exactly, imagine that in Europe.

So what, you guys reckon the only thing keeping their prisons from turning out like ours or the US' is prisoner density? Nothing to do with how they approach criminal justice?

 

[chrisc]

The criminal justice system in Scandinavia has leaned as far as is possible towards ensuring the rights of the sentenced, even as far as having a maximum 21 year sentence.

If you agree with this, fine. Most victims of crime will not agree. While we do not want to go back to the 19th century, a punishment to fit the crime might be more appropriate

 

[abandonallhope]

The criminal justice system in Scandinavia has leaned as far as is possible towards ensuring the rights of the sentenced, even as far as having a maximum 21 year sentence.

If you agree with this, fine. Most victims of crime will not agree. While we do not want to go back to the 19th century, a punishment to fit the crime might be more appropriate

You got it all wrong man, it's not the perpetrators fault that he did what he did. It was his circumstances and whatever other external influence. Ultimately, he had no choice.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

The criminal justice system in Scandinavia has leaned as far as is possible towards ensuring the rights of the sentenced, even as far as having a maximum 21 year sentence.

I know Norway does this, which other Scandinavian countries have that? And it's a little disingenuous to not also include the prerogative of the court to extend that sentence indefinitely, which effectively means someone (like Breivik) is most likely never going to be released.

 

[Alan]

Yes lets have murderers as car guards and turn our prisons into 3 star hotels. Happy to pay for that.

Hell why struggle living in a township earning an honest wage to pay for this. Rape a woman and you are set for a few years of comfort.. Free roof over your head, free education, free gym, entertainment and other luxury items. Well not exactly free your victim will be paying for it.

 

[w1z4rd]

Yes lets have murderers as car guards and turn our prisons into 3 star hotels. Happy to pay for that.

Hell why struggle living in a township earning an honest wage to pay for this. Rape a woman and you are set for a few years of comfort.. Free roof over your head, free education, free gym, entertainment and other luxury items. Well not exactly free your victim will be paying for it.

Does Scandinavia have townships?

 

[Fudzy]

Does Scandinavia have townships?

They're probably a couple feet below the ice.

 

[Alan]

Does Scandinavia have townships?

Neither would we if our population was a mere 5 million.:erm:

But before we can turn our prisons into luxary resorts we must vanquish poverty in this country and offer a free high standard of living for everybody since most can't pay for it themselves. We would though have to raise our already sky high tax rate into the stratosphere and borrow like crazy to pay for it.

Of course those that create wealth will be a little miffed that some other guy will be enjoying the fruits of their hard work. He can no longer afford his German luxary Sedan because Joe down the road who sits on his backside all day must have his Chevy Spark etc. But the wealthy are good people they will stick around a pay up. After all it works in Sweden.....

 

[intel8080]

Does Scandinavia have townships?

Not yet. But if we don't put a stop to the inflow of illegal immigrants from South Asia and Africa, we will end up with townships. And then the prison system will have to change too. WTF It is of note that Africans are over represented in our penal system! Makes one think doesn't it?

 

[Ninja'd]

Makes one think doesn't it?

No it doesn't.

 

[STS]

Not yet. But if we don't put a stop to the inflow of illegal immigrants from South Asia and Africa, we will end up with townships. And then the prison system will have to change too. WTF It is of note that Africans are over represented in our penal system! Makes one think doesn't it?

Scandinavia has Cell C?

 

[intel8080]

No it doesn't.

Well, you might have expected just that but for the Scandinavian people it definitely came as a surprise But don't worry. We are quick learners

 

[Fudzy]

Without those immigrants those countries would die out within a few generations.

 

[w1z4rd]

Neither would we if our population was a mere 5 million.:erm:

The population of Scandinavia is now 5 million? :erm:

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Without those immigrants those countries would die out within a few generations.

Why?

 

[Alan]

The population of Scandinavia is now 5 million? :erm:

Norway is. But if you dont want to campare countries with countries instead all of Scandinavia it's still only about half the population of this country.