wehateporn

On Bastoy prison island in Norway, the prisoners, some of whom are murderers and rapists, live in conditions that critics brand 'cushy' and 'luxurious'. Yet it has by far the lowest reoffending rate in Europe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...ed-like-people


"The first clue that things are done very differently on Bastoy prison island, which lies a couple of miles off the coast in the Oslo fjord, 46 miles south-east of Norway's capital, comes shortly after I board the prison ferry. I'm taken aback slightly when the ferry operative who welcomed me aboard just minutes earlier, and with whom I'm exchanging small talk about the weather, suddenly reveals he is a serving prisoner – doing 14 years for drug smuggling. He notes my surprise, smiles, and takes off a thick glove before offering me his hand. "I'm Petter," he says.

Before he transferred to Bastoy, Petter was in a high-security prison for nearly eight years. "Here, they give us trust and responsibility," he says. "They treat us like grownups." I haven't come here particularly to draw comparisons, but it's impossible not to consider how politicians and the popular media would react to a similar scenario in Britain.

There are big differences between the two countries, of course. Norway has a population of slightly less than five million, a 12th of the UK's. It has fewer than 4,000 prisoners; there are around 84,000 in the UK. But what really sets us apart is the Norwegian attitude towards prisoners. Four years ago I was invited into Skien maximum security prison, 20 miles north of Oslo. I had heard stories about Norway's liberal attitude. In fact, Skien is a concrete fortress as daunting as any prison I have ever experienced and houses some of the most serious law-breakers in the country. Recently it was the temporary residence of Anders Breivik, the man who massacred 77 people in July 2011.

Despite the seriousness of their crimes, however, I found that the loss of liberty was all the punishment they suffered. Cells had televisions, computers, integral showers and sanitation. Some prisoners were segregated for various reasons, but as the majority served their time – anything up to the 21-year maximum sentence (Norway has no death penalty or life sentence) – they were offered education, training and skill-building programmes. Instead of wings and landings they lived in small "pod" communities within the prison, limiting the spread of the corrosive criminal prison subculture that dominates traditionally designed prisons. The teacher explained that all prisons in Norway worked on the same principle, which he believed was the reason the country had, at less than 30%, the lowest reoffending figures in Europe and less than half the rate in the UK.

As the ferry powers through the freezing early-morning fog, Petter tells me he is appealing against his conviction. If it fails he will be on Bastoy until his release date in two years' time. I ask him what life is like on the island. "You'll see," he says. "It's like living in a village, a community. Everybody has to work. But we have free time so we can do some fishing, or in summer we can swim off the beach. We know we are prisoners but here we feel like people."

I wasn't sure what to expect on Bastoy. A number of wide-eyed commentators before me have variously described conditions under which the island's 115 prisoners live as "cushy", "luxurious" and, the old chestnut, "like a holiday camp". I'm sceptical of such media reports.

As a life prisoner, I spent the first eight years of the 20 I served in a cell with a bed, a chair, a table and a bucket for my toilet. In that time I was caught up in a major riot, trapped in a siege and witnessed regular acts of serious violence. Across the prison estate, several hundred prisoners took their own lives, half a dozen of whom I knew personally – and a number were murdered. Yet the constant refrain from the popular press was that I, too, was living in a "holiday camp". When in-cell toilets were installed, and a few years later we were given small televisions, the "luxury prison" headlines intensified and for the rest of the time I was in prison, it never really abated.

It always seemed to me while I was in jail that the real prison scandal was the horrendous rate of reoffending among released prisoners. In 2007, 14 prisons in England and Wales had reconvictions rates of more than 70%. At an average cost of £40,000 a year for each prisoner, this amounts to a huge investment in failure – and a total lack of consideration for potential future victims of released prisoners. That's the reason I'm keen to have a look at what has been hailed as the world's first "human ecological prison".

Thorbjorn, a 58-year-old guard who has worked on Bastoy for 17 years, gives me a warm welcome as I step on to dry land. As we walk along the icy, snowbound track that leads to the admin block, he tells me how the prison operates. There are 70 members of staff on the 2.6 sq km island during the day, 35 of whom are uniformed guards. Their main job is to count the prisoners – first thing in the morning, twice during the day at their workplaces, once en masse at a specific assembly point at 5pm, and finally at 11pm, when they are confined to their respective houses. Only four guards remain on the island after 4pm. Thorbjorn points out the small, brightly painted wooden bungalows dotted around the wintry landscape. "These are the houses for the prisoners," he says. They accommodate up to six people. Every man has his own room and they share kitchen and other facilities. "The idea is they get used to living as they will live when they are released." Only one meal a day is provided in the dining hall. The men earn the equivalent of £6 a day and are given a food allowance each month of around £70 with which to buy provisions for their self-prepared breakfasts and evening meals from the island's well-stocked mini-supermarket.

I can see why some people might think such conditions controversial. 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. Every type of offender, including men convicted of murder or rape, may be accepted, so long as they fit the criteria, the main one being a determination to live a crime-free life on release.

I ask Thorbjorn what work the prisoners do on the island. He tells me about the farm where prisoners tend sheep, cows and chickens, or grow fruit and vegetables. "They grow much of their own food," he says.

Other jobs are available in the laundry; in the stables looking after the horses that pull the island's cart transport; in the bicycle repair shop, (many of the prisoners have their own bikes, bought with their own money); on ground maintenance or in the timber workshop. The working day begins at 8.30am and already I can hear the buzz of chainsaws and heavy-duty strimmers. We walk past a group of red phone boxes from where prisoners can call family and friends. A large building to our left is where weekly visits take place, in private family rooms where conjugal relations are allowed.

After the security officer signs me in and takes my mobile, Thorbjorn delivers me to governor Arne Nilsen's office. "Let me tell you something," Thorbjorn says before leaving me. "You know, on this island I feel safer than when I walk on the streets in Oslo."

Through Nilsen's window I can see the church, the school and the library. Life for the prisoners is as normal as it is possible to be in a prison. It feels rather like a religious commune; there is a sense of peace about the place, although the absence of women (apart from some uniformed guards) and children is noticeable. Nilsen has coined a phrase for his prison: "an arena of developing responsibility." He pours me a cup of tea.

"In closed prisons we keep them locked up for some years and then let them back out, not having had any real responsibility for working or cooking. In the law, being sent to prison is nothing to do with putting you in a terrible prison to make you suffer. The punishment is that you lose your freedom. If we treat people like animals when they are in prison they are likely to behave like animals. Here we pay attention to you as human beings."

A clinical psychologist by profession, Nilsen shrugs off any notion that he is running a holiday camp. I sense his frustration. "You don't change people by power," he says. "For the victim, the offender is in prison. That is justice. I'm not stupid. I'm a realist. Here I give prisoners respect; this way we teach them to respect others. But we are watching them all the time. It is important that when they are released they are less likely to commit more crimes. That is justice for society."

The reoffending rate for those released from Bastoy speaks for itself. At just 16%, it is the lowest in Europe. But who are the prisoners on Bastoy? Are they the goodie-goodies of the system?"

More here http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...ed-like-people

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sperbonzo

You really think that it's this one factor that makes the difference?



It couldn't be, for example, the way the ENTIRE CULTURE is set up and the MINDSET OF THE ENTIRE POPULATION maybe?





Of course not. It's just because of this one thing.


Silly me


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wehateporn

Completely agree with you, Norway is different, this wouldn't work in the US at all

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Scott McD

Most prisoners should be treated like the cunts they are.


/end

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Rochard

So they commit a horrible crime and we send them to a resort? They get to tan and work out and watch tv and play tennis?

Fuck that. No sun light, no visitors, and bread and water for the rest of their lives.

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lucas131

exactly, what is this prison about? if you are poor or dont want to work, just kill someone and go for years long vacation, oh man ...

Dirty F

I have the topic starter on ignore, and all his other nicks as well, and still i wish he would fuck off to another forum.

brentbacardi

I think its a good idea. People go to prision for all sorts of reasons, not just murder and rape. Many go in for more minor crimes or wrong place/wrong time where they never set out to cause the harm they did. Sure they need some kind of punishment but when these people come out bad asses who needed to learn to live with murders at their throats for a few years, now they have no problems fucking someones shit up just for looking at them and they do even more harm to society when they bash the first person who pisses them offs head in. Happens all the time. These people could have been saved if they had safe, respectable living conditions that prepared them for when they came out.

I don't think rapists and murders should be given the same opportunities or anyone who displays violent tendencies. They are the ones who fuck up the prision for everyone else in the first place.

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SuckOnThis

Treat people like animals and that's what you get when they are released.

wehateporn

Interesting way of looking at it

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Scott McD

If you don't do anything in the first place you won't need to worry about being treated like an animal...

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seeandsee

american prisons are something prisoners for murders and lots of other shit deserves, and not this pussy homes in norway

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L-Pink

Prisons are like computers, shit in shit out.

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madm1k3

why do Americans get so offended when other countries try new approaches to problems and have success.

But I guess the prison systems are ultra successful in America

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SuckOnThis

So you've NEVER done anything that could land you in jail?

In the US criminal statutes are sprinkled throughout some 27,000 pages of the federal code, there are so many laws the govt doesnt even know how many there are. This is just on the federal level, then you have state and local laws. Did you know digging for arrowheads on federal land (ie a camp site) is illegal? What about importing a lobster over a certain size?

Sly

I do like the idea of small pods/groups. The makeup of those groups could be manipulated to help avoid violence and encourage "rehabilitation." It could also help separate the gangs and other troubles that come with hundreds, thousands of hardened criminals meeting each other every day. There also seems to be an escalation when someone goes to prison… they might come out a much worse person, segregation like this might help with that.

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Matt 26z

The US criminal justice system is a disgrace to humanity.

_Richard_

that be bad for business

wehateporn

This is key

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Three.Thousand

that sounds like awful business model for the prison, with hardly any repeat customers.

oh i get it, its not privately owned, its not even a business. who would have thought...

pornmasta

nasty you ! you want to toughen them !

_Richard_

give it time!

pornmasta

no, you need guns...

AsianSplatter

prison is big business in America, they WANT prisoners to re-enter as quick as possible after being released. No sense in actually rehabilitating a person when you're getting paid big bucks...

"incarcerating one inmate in Fiscal 2010 was $31,307 per year. "In states like Connecticut, Washington state, New York, it's anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000,"

kane

Exactly!

I'm not saying they should live the life of luxury, but there are many cases where the person could pay their debt to society, be rehabilitated and become a productive member of society again. If you lock someone in the dark cage and feed the nothing but bread and water and force them into isolation you better be prepared to deal with them for the rest of their lives because that is just going to fuck them up worse.

_Richard_

best is the rural parts down south

that's a lot of sheriffs who own private prisons

OY

Norwegian prisons might be a tad 'overboard', but so are the ones in the US, China, Guatemala, Thailand, Russia, Iraq, Iran, and on and on - but for very different reasons.

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