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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

It is fair to consider the study suspect in that Scandinavian societies as a whole may contribute to decreased recidivism. Understanding the role that the penal system plays will have different outcomes in other countries with different social makeups and different values (broadly speaking) should not be discounted.

That's not to say that rehabilitation is impossible. I am inclined to disagree with the utter disregard GP had for the study, but I also do not believe it can be directly replicated in American society as it stands today.

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This is obvious to me. A different value system is required to approach justice differently. Sadly this indicates that it is not just our justice system that needs fixing, but instead our entire societal culture. It’s no wonder we have such outlying violence statistics, we are just more bloodthirsty.

And this is coming from someone who believes that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Yes, guns make it easier, but you have to want to kill first, and we simply have more of that per capita.

Likewise, maybe the same society that views justice as retributive, is one that will fight tooth and nail to keep access to guns unchanged even in the face of elementary school massacres and toddlers accidentally discharging guns left lying around, as well as look the other way from abysmal mental health crises leading to dire situations that lead to a variety of violence and trauma.

So yes, I agree that we won’t just see it replicated in American society anytime soon.

Norway had a brutal, US inspired prison system until the 1960s. Norway's most infamous prison (now closed) was explicitly built on plans copying a US prison design.

Norway's current focus on reducing reoffending was a decades long path of prison reform and gradually figuring out what works.

It is also fair to consider that if systemic racial profiling has contributed to a person's winding up in prison, then following their release from prison that same racial profiling will put them back in prison.

> also do not believe it can be directly replicated in American society as it stands today.

amen to that. profit-making prisons are a pretty clever way around slavery laws.

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