Prison of the future?

[RomanNose]

There has been a lot of introspection in Norway in the year following the attacks carried out by Anders Behring Breivik.

The country's justice system has been subject to intensive scrutiny, and foreigners might be forgiven for assuming that public opinion on crime and punishment had hardened.

But according to the junior minister for justice, Kristin Bergersen, it has not.

"I think the debate we are seeing in Norway right now establishes that we have the right values and the right system for punishment here," she says.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

If this wasn't a prison, the Norwegian government could rent it out for holidays”

Morten
Inmate
It is highly unlikely that Breivik will ever set foot on the prison island of Bastoey. Norway does have solitary confinement cells and high-security wings.

But although it is only one, liberal, end of a penal spectrum, the open prison where inmates wander woods, fields and beaches unhindered is still an important symbol of the Norwegian system. Indeed, to many, it is the jewel in its crown.

"Fundamentally, we believe you have to start with prisoner rehabilitation on day one," Ms Bergersen. "Everybody knows that when you are released in Norway you can be somebody's neighbour.

"It is in the public interest, when it comes to security, that you receive rehabilitation when you are inside the prison system so that you can go out and lead the life that everybody else takes for granted."

Bastoey might be seen as the softest option by some. Its inmates are among the most hardened criminals.

Continued

In my opinion the government should try this system as it seems to be working very well. Though Norway is quite different in culture, the re-offending rate in this open prison is still much lower than this closed prison.
What do you guys think, could this system work in the UK?

 

[Ahleckz]

No. We have a underclass of people in this country who feel that crime is the only way to do things. It doesn't matter what the prison system is, be it punishment, rehabilitation, whatever, the fact is they just don't care and will continue committing crime.

Until we (politicians) accept that this is true, and give up trying to 'fix' them then the re offending rate will stay high.

 

[swillsy]

Ridiculous, you are obviously very sheltered if you don't realise that some people are and will always be criminals.

I personally agree with the liberals for once and believe there should be less prisons and more high security mental hospitals to treat all the people that think drugs and violence are acceptable

 

[RomanNose]

Ridiculous, you are obviously very sheltered if you don't realise that some people are and will always be criminals.

When did I say that?
This seems to be a far better system than what we have now, it teaches them life skills and actually lets them understand what life is like.
Some will remain criminals, I think we should at least give it a try. What's the worst that will happen?

 

[Derek W]

just kill the offenders if the crime is as serious as fruitloop Anders Behring Breivik people like that dont deserve to live

 

[Ahleckz]

When did I say that?
This seems to be a far better system than what we have now, it teaches them life skills and actually lets them understand what life is like.
Some will remain criminals, I think we should at least give it a try. What's the worst that will happen?

What's the worst that can happen? Letting loads of criminals wonder about through woods, with minimal guards? Oh I wonder.

It's a different psyche, we can't just extrapolate one countries justice system into another as the people are different with different and varied idiosyncraticies. Our current system does not work, because there is to great an onus on rehabilitation and wrongly believing that we can 'treat' some criminals.

For our society, I feel that we need a system which proves that crime does not pay. The only reasonable way to do this is through tougher sentences and a harsher prison environment. I suppose there is scope for two styles of prison (punishment & rehabilitation) for the hardened life criminals and those who aren't. A purely punishment orientated penal system will just turn jails into criminal schools.

just kill the offenders if the crime is as serious as fruitloop Anders Behring Breivik people like that dont deserve to live

Musn't bite Ahleckz!!!

 

[swillsy]

When did I say that?
This seems to be a far better system than what we have now, it teaches them life skills and actually lets them understand what life is like.
Some will remain criminals, I think we should at least give it a try. What's the worst that will happen?

The worst that could happen is that are released and reoffend because they haven't learnt that their behaviour is unacceptable because last time they got a camping holiday.

Prison should be horrible and a deterrent

 

[semi-pro waster]

There's a couple of major factors at work here - whether we could (and should) have lower reoffending rates than we do and whether it would be viewed as acceptable to have prisoners treated as humans.

Taking the last point first - it's not a popular viewpoint, it's not a vote winner and therefore is unlikely to be implemented because it doesn't appeal to people who believe that prison is primarily (or only) for punishment. Rehabilitation when done well tends to be neither cheap nor a simple option with one size fits all but whether you think it is worthwhile will depend to some degree on whether you want people who have committed a crime to be effectively written off or not.

It may be counter-intuitive to some but where you don't treat prisoners just as "scum" then you've got a much better chance of reducing the rates of recidivism. To implement a system like Norway would probably require little less than a sea-change in attitude however across both the prison population and the general populace. There's a tendency to believe that harsh conditions are a deterrent and yet it ignores that in regimes and points in history where the harshest possible conditions have been implemented the rates of crime and reoffending haven't dropped - usually the obverse can be shown. It's not a simple cause and effect scenario but there's at least enough correlatory evidence to suggest that a more measured approach to prisoners and how we treat them might influence better results.

In response to Ahleckz's point regarding perpetual criminals - it's absolutely true that some people will never be reformed and that in any system you will have failures. The question is whether you should do away with any system because a minority will not benefit from it or will abuse it? The Norwegian system carefully selects those prisoners it feels that might benefit from it, that would be a prerequisite for any system of rehabilitation.

 

[RomanNose]

What's the worst that can happen? Letting loads of criminals wonder about through woods, with minimal guards? Oh I wonder.

Trial it with a small amount of criminals, with decent security?
Loads of Islands around Scotland where you would die if you tried to escape .
The reoffending rate is 15%, it's not something that should just be dismissed due to a different in cultures.

 

[Muffin`]

Just because it works well in one country does not mean it will work well in another. I'm all for prison being firstly about rehabilitation and secondly about punishment, but that doesn't bode well with some. If you're turning people out with qualifications/skills that they can use to make their own way in this world without finding the need to fall back into crime you'll have a healthier society.

The problem we seem to have here is lack of understanding by the public (press?) towards sentencing and a prison system that seems to lack the resources to deal with detention and rehabilitation

 

[julianhj]

Prisons in the UK are far too much like a holiday camp. IMHO it should be bare cells, with eight hours a day of decent work or education. Any refusal to participate/bad behaviour should be dealt with by solitary confinement. No TVs, no games consoles, no luxuries, drugs dog on daily patrols, significantly lengthened sentences/harsher regimes for poor behaviour.

Here's the view of an average prolific offender, known to all the police officers in the local area: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9708...sks_court___Why_jail_me__I_ll_only_watch_TV_/

 

[RomanNose]

Just because it works well in one country does not mean it will work well in another. I'm all for prison being firstly about rehabilitation and secondly about punishment, but that doesn't bode well with some. If you're turning people out with qualifications/skills that they can use to make their own way in this world without finding the need to fall back into crime you'll have a healthier society.

The problem we seem to have here is lack of understanding by the public (press?) towards sentencing and a prison system that seems to lack the resources to deal with detention and rehabilitation

I agree, we will never know if this works without trialing it though.

 

[Ahleckz]

In response to Ahleckz's point regarding perpetual criminals - it's absolutely true that some people will never be reformed and that in any system you will have failures. The question is whether you should do away with any system because a minority will not benefit from it or will abuse it? The Norwegian system carefully selects those prisoners it feels that might benefit from it, that would be a prerequisite for any system of rehabilitation.

Deleted the rest, as I basically agree with it. Especially the vote winning argument. People want longer sentences, more people locked up, and harsher prisons. In order to satisfy this, we need to build more prisons and that means the money is going to have to be found from somewhere. It's political suicide at the minute to suggest more prison building because it's almost inevitable that the money will be diverted from a 'good' cause.
If only we didn't sign up to the foreign aid agreement, hey ho.

I would however question the size of the minority you speak about and would suggest it is far larger than what you expect. Like I said, I would like two systems ran together, with one centred upon rehabilitation and treatment in order to get people out of the circle of crime (though it would be almost pointless without addressing their life outwith prison) and the other to be for career criminals with no prospect of ever living being a law abiding citizen.

 

[Muffin`]

Prisons in the UK are far too much like a holiday camp. IMHO it should be bare cells, with eight hours a day of decent work or education. Any refusal to participate/bad behaviour should be dealt with by solitary confinement. No TVs, no games consoles, no luxuries, drugs dog on daily patrols, significantly lengthened sentences/harsher regimes for poor behaviour.

Here's the view of an average prolific offender, known to all the police officers in the local area: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9708...sks_court___Why_jail_me__I_ll_only_watch_TV_/

Indeed, crime was non existent in the middle ages with the fear of being sent to a prison like that. In other news, witches float.

 

[bitslice]

No. We have a underclass of people in this country who feel that crime is the only way to do things.

Ridiculous, you are obviously very sheltered if you don't realise that some people are and will always be criminals.

That's a bit of a sad way at looking at people

If you smack a child repeatedly it will learn that violence is the accepted way to solve things. At some point we need to stop abusing people around us no matter what the problem, our prisons are basically abusive on many levels and it is obvious that they are useless at achieving reform.

Maybe it is you that is sheltered and ridiculous for believing otherwise?

 

[swillsy]

Very liberal responses here I'm afraid people who behave like this need punishment and not a cuddle, the more society tries to treat them like victims then the worst it will be in the long run. You may want to have a look at the British policy of appeasement in world war 2.
Short answer - it didn't work out well.
People who do wrong need punishing

 

[semi-pro waster]

Deleted the rest, as I basically agree with it. Especially the vote winning argument. People want longer sentences, more people locked up, and harsher prisons. In order to satisfy this, we need to build more prisons and that means the money is going to have to be found from somewhere. It's political suicide at the minute to suggest more prison building because it's almost inevitable that the money will be diverted from a 'good' cause.
If only we didn't sign up to the foreign aid agreement, hey ho.

Indeed funding for prisons or rehabilitation isn't a topic that's likely to work well for most politicians especially at the moment with the austerity measures. I'm far from convinced that longer sentences et al are effective at anything much other than assuaging public desire for retribution but that we need more prisons to cope with the population and reduce overcrowding/allow sentencing guidelines to be followed properly is something I'm happy to agree with.

I would however question the size of the minority you speak about and would suggest it is far larger than what you expect. Like I said, I would like two systems ran together, with one centred upon rehabilitation and treatment in order to get people out of the circle of crime (though it would be almost pointless without addressing their life outwith prison) and the other to be for career criminals with no prospect of ever living being a law abiding citizen.

I don't know precisely how large the minority would be but let's say for the sake of argument that it's roughly equivalent to Norway as I've got no information to suggest we're inherently a more criminal nation or that it is harder to reduce recidivism in the British. This would mean even out of the carefully selected group for rehabilitation there'd be approximately 1/5 (it's about 15% in Norway) who go back to crime, sure it's still a sizeable proportion of people but when you compare that to the normal recidivism rates it's getting on for 3-4 times better.

My views on that are the same as for pretty much every other system ever including benefits - some people it won't work for and some people will abuse it, that's not a good reason to deny it to a majority that it will work for. Obviously we need to address and minimise the risk of people taking advantage of systems for social support but let's not forget the reason they were introduced in the first place.

Very liberal responses here I'm afraid people who behave like this need punishment and not a cuddle, the more society tries to treat them like victims then the worst it will be in the long run. You may want to have a look at the British policy of appeasement in world war 2.
Short answer - it didn't work out well.
People who do wrong need punishing

Norway isn't treating prisoners like victims, it's treating them as humans - I appreciate it's a nuanced difference but it's an important one.

 

[bitslice]

Very liberal responses here I'm afraid people who behave like this need punishment and not a cuddle, the more society tries to treat them like victims then the worst it will be in the long run. You may want to have a look at the British policy of appeasement in world war 2.

Oh, because Appeasement really is a valid comparison...

There is a difference between punishment because someone did something wrong - I'm OK with that, just not the systematic layer upon layer of abuse that we heap upon people from the moment they are born.

Some people are doomed to fail.

 

[Ahleckz]

That's a bit of a sad way at looking at people

If you smack a child repeatedly it will learn that violence is the accepted way to solve things. At some point we need to stop abusing people around us no matter what the problem, our prisons are basically abusive on many levels and it is obvious that they are useless at achieving reform.

Maybe it is you that is sheltered and ridiculous for believing otherwise?

It might be a sad way, but it's reality. The proof is out there, look at reoffending rates, look at the people in prison and their criminal history. It's shocking, and it proves that there are numerous people out there who will continue to commit crime whilst they believe that it pays to do so. For these people, the punishment isn't a punishment and rehabilitation will never work.
We can't cure those who don't want to be cured or don't think they are ill.

Prison is not abusive though I quite agree that in their current form they are pretty useless in reforming people.

 

[bitslice]

Prison is not abusive though

What makes you say that?
The last documentary I saw on the subject made it seem pretty intimidating