Hacker News Reader

Regarding #2 - while I am all for reforming the US prison system, a direct comparison of US (prison) failure with Scandinavian (prison) success is unfair. It also risks creating misguided reforms, without properly understanding and addressing the social, economic, historical and geographical gaps between the two countries.

View on HN

You and @KBeyo are absolutely right.

It is two different countries and very different cultures. Just modeling US prisons on Scandinavian ones is not a solution. I could even imagine it making things worse in the short-term (a banal example would be "so the prisoners in Norwegian prisons have access to knives in the kitchen they roam freely, let's try that in San Quentin"...)

But I think we could start looking at the incentives the American prison system creates while also addressing the social issues that seems to be the root of a lot of the challenges. It is not easy and I can imagine it taking a century to solve unfortunately.

I don't think there was a suggestion to model prisons in the U.S. after others in Scandanavia, only a comparison to point out that if others have found a solution to recidivism that works in their society, we should be able to find one that works in ours.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com