Are Scandinavian prisons better than American prisons?
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In Scandinavian countries, like Denmark and Norway, prisons are much different. In both the United States and Denmark, the rate of prisoner death is less than 1\%, so these policies do not appear to lead to more murders or suicides. They do lead to lower recidivism.
Why are Nordic prisons better?
Nordic countries don’t rely on prison labor to drive their economy, so their prisons are focused on rehabilitation, not recidivism. They treat their prisoners like humans so they will act like humans on release. They have one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
Prison conditions are drastically different between America and Scandinavia. Norway is home to the most humane prison in the world, Halden Prison. Drug treatment is much more common in Scandinavia than it is in America. American drug abusers are often locked up.
What are prisons in Norway like?
Prisons in Norway are known for being heavily focused on rehabilitation. Some say they’re too comfortable and forgiving for perpetrators of serious crimes, including violence. Some say they’re exemplarily humane and part of the reason Norway’s crime rates are low compared to other countries.
Solitary confinement is a very strong sanction which is used routinely in Scandinavian prisons.
Are Norway prisons good?
Norway has consistently ranked number one on a number of lists entailing the best, most comfortable prisons in the world. Since the 1990s, Norway’s prison system has evolved into spaces that represent comfort, healing and inclusivity.
The thing is, in the Scandinavian countries, the inmates will be treated as “normal” as possible in an attempt to make them suitable for life outside prison once they have served their sentence. Conway’s view, however, is that it’s you who put yourself in prison.
Do Nordic countries’ rehabilitative ethos work in prisons?
In an insightful article in the Atlantic, Doran Larson explains how his research on prisons revealed that Nordic countries’ rehabilitative ethos produces tangible results for those countries. Even in the high-security prisons he visited in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, he observed some remarkable things:
How many prisoners are there in Sweden?
In the past decade, the number of Swedish prisoners has dropped from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million. The country has closed a number of prisons, and the recidivism rate is around 40\%, which is far less than in the U.S. and most European countries.
What is it like to be in prison in Norway?
The common understanding of prison is that it is a place of deprivation and penance rather than domestic comfort. Prisoners in Norway can apply for a transfer to Bastoy when they have up to five years left of their sentence to serve.