In Norway, a Prison Built on Second Chances | Hacker News Reader

In Norway, a Prison Built on Second Chances

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The US prison system is actually an industrialized slavery system for US corporations. The prison system here has a "work program" for inmates where they earn pennies per hour to manufacture products for US corporations. Investigate how institutionalized this practice has become. We need to stop this immediately, as it can and will spread unless we do. This is evil unmasked.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit... http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_... http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/18/prison-small-business-ent-m...

I agree that this trend is disturbing, but am unable to reconcile your alarmist language with the numbers in the links you provided.

I do not support private corporations (or even public good -- yes, I think the chain gang days of old are similarly awful) making money off of prisoners. However, from the articles you linked, some data:

* 2 million (2,000,000) inmates in federal/state/local prisons.

* 100 private prisons, 62,000 inmates in them (6.2%)

* 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states (unsure how this relates to previous point, the article isn't very well written and doesn't connect these numbers)

* Forbes.com article says there are 6,000 prisoners in the US serving time while working for a private enterprise.

So on the one extreme, we're looking at 6% of the prison population being affected by this. At the other extreme, there are only 6k prisoners affected.

I believe there are a huge number of ethical and moral violations surrounding the prison side of the US criminal justice system. Private prisons are one of them, but hyperbole and extreme language do not serve any of the population.

I think "hyperbole" is unfair. Waiting to be "alarmist" until after an "alarm" has the capacity to halt a terrible situation is rather pointless. It's so much easier to stop a bad practice than walk it back from significant implementation.

This may be small, but it's growing rapidly, and if it's 6.2% now, it's 15% by 2020, and so on.

The problem with the argument is not that it's not worth raising alarm about 6%. It's alarming--that number was basically 0% 20 years ago. However, the argument doesn't explain how our justice system got to be the way it is. Private prison corporations didn't create extreme minimum sentences. They came along after the fact to profit from them. The core problem is a lack of virtue in the American people. We're unsympathetic, unforgiving, and unmerciful. our lack of virtue created the system that opportunists are now profiting from.

Ironically, painting broad swaths of people with labels like "non-virtuous" is how we got extreme sentences In the first place.

It's not, in fact, growing rapidly.

It's also not totally clear what the disadvantages of private prisons are, versus overcrowded public prisons. Whatever the case, it's almost certainly true that it's a subset of the 6% of inmates in private prisons who are harmed by prison privatization.

(I have no idea what I think about private prisons. I do not automatically assume that systems controlled by corporations are worse than those controlled by government bureaucracies. Public or private, US prison sentences are far too long for most crimes.)

The US prison system is actually an industrialized slavery system for US corporations.

I do not have the data/link, but I heard from trusted source that some of the companies that build and operate prisons require states to guarantee maximum occupancy before they build a new jail.

Not sure why you are being downvoted here, but this is a true statement. Most private prison corporations have occupancy clauses in their contract that mandate either (a) 100%+ occupancy before building a new prison, or (b) in place of occupancy the state can elect to pay a higher premium per inmate. The US legal system is built on fulfilling the occupancy rates to avoid the higher fees.

http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal-how-lock...

Not sure why you are being downvoted here

Me neither. HN.

Here are some additional links:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occu..., http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/private-prison-quot...

Is there a reason we should be against work programs? There are moral hazards, but to my knowledge having something constructive to do & being able to make a little money have positive effects on rehabilitation, reintegration, and daily prison life.

> Is there a reason we should be against work programs?

Inherently? No.

Work programs where the pay is a tenth or less that of even minimum wage, though, are easily abused.

Sounds like the solution is to pay them nothing and call it "training".

Since they are paid less than minimum wage it's unfair to external workers and should be illegal. If they cost less than non prisoners to employ and have their food/housing subsidized by tax payers - no one will ever compete for the same jobs. It's nearly-free labor for companies subsidized by everyone else.

So we subsidize the employment of prisoners to help with their reintegration back into society. I don't see the problem.

Hell, so long as it's effective, we're saving money in the long run. Money spent curbing recidivism pays for itself, considering a prisoner costs tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Also, it's not like prisoners are competing for the best jobs. There are heavy restrictions on their employment (part of why a strong incentive is needed to make them employable) so they are unlikely to be competing for software development jobs anytime soon. They do things like clean roadsides and stamp license plates.

Cool that this appeared here right now, as I'm in the middle of rewatching The House I Live In, a fantastic documentary about the US drug war/justice system. Go watch it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8

The current US system is mindblowingly stupid. People who are treated like animals tend to act like it, especially if they're encouraged to.

"People who are treated like animals tend to act like it"

I'd alternatively say that "people tend to act defensively/aggressively when they are mistreated the way humans mistreat other animals so often"

Thanks, I wish one day that view on animals will stop. Too much hypocrisy coming from humans.

I'd say its not just "mistreatment" of animals, because even the stuff you do to beloved animals would be demeaning to a human being. Especially the part about controlling virtually every part of their lives. For pets, that is ok or even better than most alternatives. For Humans? Hell on earth.

What's amazing is that the US penal system acts the way it does even when these examples have been on the planet for decades and the benefits clearly visible. It also seems that the general consensus among psychologists and psychiatrists is that the current system damages people and does nothing to achieve its alleged aims. Running a third world penal system only burdens our society in so many ways, and it's even officially named in the third-world/soviet/despotic style of calling it something it's not: a "correctional" system.

"The thing with the war on drugs, and the question we have to ask is, not why is it a failure, but why given that it seems to be a failure - why is it persistent?

And I'm beginning to think: Maybe it is a success. What if it's a success by keeping police forces busy? What if it's a success by keeping private jails thriving. What if it’s a success keeping a legal establishment justified in its self-generated activity? Maybe it’s a success on different terms than the publicly stated ones."

The US justice system works great for the ones who are being paid to keep it running.

I've said many times that if I was ever on a US jury (which would never happen; I'm Norwegian, living in the UK, and even if I at some point where to be resident in the US, this attitude would get me out of jury duty very quickly:),

I would have a hard time voting for a guilty plea except in the most exceptionally horrible cases, because I would find it exceptionally hard to justify making anyone suffer through the US prison system. That would include if it was a murder trial or similar.

Not only do I find the US prison system immoral for its treatment of inmates, I find it immoral for the violence it is indirectly responsible for inflicting on wider society by actively treating people in a way known to at best be ineffective, and at worst having a massively negative effect on re-offending rates.

Anyone worried about violent crime in the US should start by demanding reform of the prison system.

This is partially why the innocence and sentencing portions are separated.

And that separation is a substantial part of why I'd find it hard to morally justify giving a "guilty" vote given the penal system in question.

This is on the front page of one of the largest newspapers in Norway right now: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/usa/fengselsdoemt-nordmann...

A Norwegian guy in the US, convicted to 7 years in prison for driving the wrong way down a one way street (and not injuring anyone btw), asks to be executed because the prison he is in is so horrible since he doesn't receive enough pain medication (he broke his neck in prison). He spends most of the time in isolation.

I think you're giving an incomplete version of what happened. Anyone who's interested can read a more complete account in English:

http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/04/25/201204...

1) He was not convicted merely for "driving the wrong way down a one way street", he was convicted for driving recklessly down a road with a lot of people on it.

2) He is not asking to be executed because the prison is horrible, but because they have taken away his pain meds -- which they did because he (allegedly) tried not swallowing them in order to sell them.

There's definitely more to this story, I wouldn't be so sure that he's completely innocent (regardless of how reasonable the sentence is).

The link posted by twoodfin says this:

"He has a history of aggressive behavior," said Navajo County Attorney Carlyon, whose investigators unearthed police reports relating to John in Alabama, Illinois and California.

Those incidents included threats, an alleged stalking of a young girl, an attempted suicide and a run-in with a Los Angeles bicyclist in which John was accused of running over the man's bicycle in a fit of anger. Not all the incidents resulted in charges, and none resulted in a conviction."

From your description, he sounds mentally ill.

Just to add a bit: according to witnesses, he was driving the wrong way down a one-way street on which there was a street festival, vocalizing threats to pedestrians who wouldn't get out of his way, actually grazing one of them, with his car periodically leaving the street and jumping onto the sidewalk, at one point menacing a food stand on the sidewalk.

His mother, in the car with him at the time, indicates that they were driving the wrong way down the street on purpose: frustrated by the street closures from the ongoing festival, they got to within visual range of their destination (a garage where their belongings were) and opted to ignore the street signs to get there.

Photos of him post-arrest show visible injuries to his face. That wasn't the police: his driving menaced some young children (apparently near the food stand) so frightening their father that he ran after the car and decked the driver. It was at that point that the driver fled the scene.

Seven year is a crazy high sentence; much too long. But using a moving car to forcibly coerce people out of your way isn't a simple moving violation: it is, and should be, a felony.

What if someone opened a for-profit prison in the US that focused on rehabilitation? The prison could start by bidding on incarceration contracts for non-violent drug offenders. The prison could take notes from the Scandinavian system:

  * Humane housing
  * Counseling 
  * Family visits
  * Emphasis on self-reliance

To help reduce the costs of the prison, the inmates could produce something that is very labor intensive and hard to create without cheap labor. Farming? Food production? Laundering uniforms? QA testing for large software companies? (Only half joking.)

Without the political clout that the Corrections Corp of America has, I bet it would be difficult to bid for contracts, but it's a more realistic way of making a change than political pressure.

It's fine building a prison on the premise of second chances, but it will fail if the society it belongs to isn't build on the premise of offering a second (or third, etc) chance.

Either you believe in the ability of every human to change their behaviour, and you give them a chance to... every time... or you don't.

This, I feel, is tied to the death penalty too. Societies that give no second chance do not seem to worry too much about killing people.

It's a good idea for Americans to get elements from the article, but it's impossible to completely emulate it.

Norway has a smaller and more homogeneous population, making these programs easier to be managed and funded.

Aren't most prisoners in the US in State, rather than Federal, prisons? Norway has a larger population than a lot of US States.

What does population size have to do with it? Population density in the US and Norway is similar I think.

I can imagine a homogeneous population resulting in a lower crime rate although I have no data to back that up. I think a low crime rate makes it possible to have higher quality programs like this.

You have threshold effects.

Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases.

Sure, the US is going to have more very difficult cases because it has more people.

Let's skim those very difficult cases off for the moment: why can't the US make better use of concepts like restorative justice and rehabilitation for the rest of the criminal justice population?

It's cheaper; it's more effective to reduce crime; it's better for the children involved; etc etc etc.

> Assuming equivalent distribution, the higher the amount of people, the higher the amount of extremely difficult cases.

So divide the jurisdictions to where they're manageable. We already do this - each state runs their system independently, just as each EU member state does instead of having a single European prison system.

People can travel.

The larger the population, the more inmates(in total number) there will be. Therefore, its organizational structure becomes harder to manage and prone to bureaucracy.

The more inmates in total numbers yes, but the US have almost 10 times the number of inmates per capita Norway does. The state with the lowest incarceration rate still has double Norway's incarceration rate (Maine, 148; 25% the population of Norway and a similar density).

So subdivide it in nice manageable chunks and manage them separately.

This argument of scale comes up time and time again in these type of discussions despite being totally invalid in most cases: In most instances that are up for discussion it is not necessary to build one single large system.

Norway's prison population is not more homogeneous though, 34% of people in Norwegians prisons aren't even Norwegian citizens. In US prisons the number of foreigners is at < 3%.

This line of thinking never ceases to amaze me.

The US consists of 50 states, a substantial majority of which have fewer people than Norway. In other words there already is a convenient delineation to use for separate systems; and there already are state-level penal systems.

For the handful of states where the population is more than twice as big or so, there are easy regional separations you could make.

These kind of problems are easy to scale because they partition trivially if there are aspects of the system that does not benefit from scale.

Now you also make the argument it makes it easier to fund these programs in a smaller more homogeneous population. If you mean that getting political agreement to funding is easier, that may be a point. But then the problem is not emulating it, but lack of will to emulate it.

State legislature is unlikely to go "soft on crime". Just look at how Pot legislation always comes from citizen driven campaigns and not from the elected officials. They acquiesce when the population demands change but enact none on their own.

Could it be a prisoner's dilemma of sorts between states? If one state introduces prisons along the lines of those described in the article, then criminals will flock to that state because it'll be known as the one that has nice prisons.

Consider the opposing stick argument instead of the carrot; from what I've heard TX and LA and MS and AZ are no fun at all, yet that seems to have little impact on the figures.

Do you actually, like, really believe that?! That’s absurd.

I mean, ok, as a political idea that can be powerful but I don’t see it having anything at all to do with the truth. It’s just absurd …

If criminals picked jurisdictions based on criminal justice systems, presumably there would have been pretty much no crime in places like Maricopa County, Arizona under "Sherrif Joe", but as it happens criminals rarely appear to weigh the impact of getting caught very much.

I'm not saying all criminals do, but enough might, especially if there is a drastic difference in punishment / rehabilitation.

American apologism comes in two contradictory flavors:

-- "It's so big!"

-- "What can we do, the states decide for themselves!"

It often seems like the same people are able to hold either view depending on the question.

If, say, Minnesota wanted to have a prison system like Norway's, what's stopping them?

If, say, Minnesota wanted to have a prison system like Norway's, what's stopping them?

You are correct that states in the United States differ from one another in how they set up their prison systems. (Two other facts, in relation to other comments in this thread, are 1) most prisoners in the United States are in state prisons rather than federal prisons, and 2) most prisoners in the United States are in prison for offenses other than drug offenses.) I live in Minnesota. Minnesota actually does emulate Norway more than it emulates many other states of the United States. It has a lower incarceration rate than most states, and it has a higher level of public spending per inmate than most states, with single-bunk cells being the aspiration (and, for a while, the reality) to a much greater degree than in most state prison systems.

I once had occasion to tour Minnesota's maximum-security prison at Oak Park Heights[1] as an interpreter for a human-rights lawyer from another country. The lawyer, who knew the prisons in his country very well, was amazed at how clean and spacious the Minnesota prison was. He asked, in complete seriousness, "Wouldn't some people commit crimes just be put in a place like this?" A guard answered, with an equal degree of seriousness, "I wouldn't want to be an inmate here." Being in prison is denial of freedom. That's enough to count as punishment for most freedom-loving people.

[1] http://www.doc.state.mn.us/pages/index.php/facilities/adult-...

There's a non-profit organization in Germany called Leonhard, which educates and coaches inmates to become entrepreneurs when they're released from prison:

http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://ww...

I think that's a wonderful example of how to both treat prisoners respectfully and at the same time provide a benefit to society.

The 250 inmates here are locked in their cells for 12 hours a day. But those cells are private rooms, with wood furniture, a shower, a fridge and a flat-screen TV.

hmmm...Private rooms could be part of the problem. Isolation can create psychosis. Maybe 12 hours a day is good enough, but I think total isolation should be avoided whenever possible, or let prisoners choose whether or not to be isolated. Integrating prisoners saves money and makes then happier. But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250.

250 is probably an average-size prison in Norway?

Here in Finland, the largest prison in the country can accomodate 299 inmates. I imagine Norway's situation is roughly similar.

It seems to be one of the biggest prison in the country, Bergen can house 258 inmates but it's not clear that there are bigger prisons, trawling through the official listing[0] and looking for "insette" (inducted/inmates) and "plasser" (places/seats) most prisons units are in the high 60s, with very few approaching 200.

[0] http://www.kriminalomsorgen.no/finn-fengsel.237849.no.html

if you count 8 houers sleeping, then they are lockt in 4 houers of "awake" time lockt in there rooms

> But these are probably among worst offenders given that there are only 250.

While Halden is a maximum security prison, it's also highly focused on rehabilitation, so it's not necessarily where the worst offenders are (Breivik is at Ila for instance, which can hold 124 people).

Halden is actually a fairly big prison by norwegian standard I think, the capacity of the whole Norwegian prison system is a bit below 4000 (77 per 100000 citizens, the current incarceration rate is 72 per 100000 according to wikipedia).

72/100,000 versus Louisiana's 867/100,000 is a pretty shocking difference. Wow. The lowest in the US (Maine) is still 148/100,000.

I'm surprised Maine is only twice times Norway.

I doubt it makes them happier. It would IF you can choose with who stay in the room and move in another if you don't like the company.

I mean I had to share some rooms for some weeks with different people, it was one of the worst experience of my life: different behaviors, idea of "respecting personal spaces", idea of "maximum noise allowed", habits at night, hygiene, etc... It is really something stressful. In a prison, when you risk to end up with people you probably won't like at all, is far better to have a personal room to stay for the big part of the time.

I don't think "inmates stay in their rooms at night" really counts as isolation.

Most people with roommates still want a private room to retreat to.

I regularly don't leave my home 12 hours or more at a time... Should I be worried? ;-)

Sweden has a similar system. And the Swedish Prison and Probation Service even has a "an average day in prison"-page about everyday life at a Swedish medium security prison:

https://www.kriminalvarden.se/fangelse-frivard-och-hakte/fan...

Halden is high/maximum security though.

Too bad there are no second chances for the victims though.

So you want revenge? Because one life it ruined (assuming irreparable crimes like rape or murder) you need to ruin another one?

The goal of penal system should not be punishment, but rather prevention of crime. Punishment is only one aspect of crime prevention.

IMHO, imprisonment has two goals:

  1. deterrence, to prevent _another_ person to commit the same crime in the future
  2. get really dangerous people away from the general population (this would be rare)

Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders.

>Every crime is a failure of society already. There is no place for revenge or intentionally bad treatment of offenders.

That is, at the very best, an extremely simplified extreme opinion.

Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims, including punishing the offender. I don't get why this is an extreme pov but apparently it is.

> Victims have every right to hate their offenders and a just society should do everything they can to help the victims...

Yes, society should do everything it can to help the victims---to help the victims to heal. Society has no imperative to help the victims to hate.

Ah but healing requires pain be inflicted on your transgressor.

I feel sad for you if that is genuinely how you feel.

At some point you have to think about whether hatred or revenge are productive ways to help victims. Maybe there are better ways.

Seem completely normal to me. However the people who post on articles about criminal justice on HN are not a random sample of the population. The law considers punishment to be a valid role of the justice system, even though punishment should only consist of denial of freedom, and not being raped or killed by fellow prisoners or guards.

    A Canadian ad executive, Paul Coffin, pleaded guilty to fifteen counts of defrauding the federal government of $1.5 million. For five years, he and his wife had lived the good life by double billing for his services and submitting bogus invoices for fictitious employees. During the investigation, he had been uncooperative and experienced many memory “lapses” about his criminal activities. 

    He received a conditional sentence (no jail time). The judge accepted the man’s suggestion that instead of prison he should deliver a series of lectures on ethics to university students. The proposed topics of these heartfelt lectures are: “Never compromise your integrity, no matter what the perceived benefit.” “The only person who can rob you of your reputation, credibility, and good name is yourself.”

This is an excerpt from a book about psychopaths. You could argue that their condition is due to an organic brain damage, but they are basically immune to rehabilitation and a danger to society. They are masters of deception and will cheat and lie in order to be released prematurely. I really hope the Scandinavians have thought of this.

> They are masters of deception and will cheat and lie in order to be released prematurely. I really hope the Scandinavians have thought of this.

The low re-offending rates speaks for themselves: Most people who commit a crime do not re-offend if they're treated properly. Most of them are ordinary people that made a mistake, not psychopaths.

I don't doubt that, and I vastly prefer the scandinavian prison system over the US one. I simply meant to illustrate that there are cases where it might backfire.

There are some cases probably, but if the total number of crimes go down it pays off in the end. The damage done to a victim is the same no matter who does the crime.

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