[Newsbot]

Title: Norway's controversial 'cushy prison' experiment - could it catch on in the UK?
Category: World
Posted By: stemmer
Date: 2011-05-08 09:14:47

[andyt]

Good idea, punishment doesn't work anyway. But rather than saunas etc,they should focus on rehabilitation opportunities, tho they seem to be doing that.

And to work, you've got to keep them in for a good while. A 6 month sentence for a serious crime just isn't going to change behavior, either in a punishment oriented prison, or a rehabilitation oriented one.

But hooray for the Norvegians. The handle their oil resources better than we do, they manage their income inequality better, and now their prisons too. Be nice we if we could have some sort of exchange programs for our politicians, tho I doubt the Norskies would be stupid enough to go for it.

[commanderkai]

Sheesh, they live better than I do as an upper-middle class young adult. Alright, time to murder somebody in Norway!

[Freakinoldguy]

Nice life.

The only concern I'd have is how do they expect these "rehabilitated" gentlemen of lesiure to carry on living the lifestyle they're accustomed to when they get released?

My guess is it's right back to what put them in this resort in the first place, after all who'd want to leave paradise and live in the real world?

[jeff744]

I prefer my idea of making the prisoners build low income housing under supervision. Teach them a trade and makes the buildings even less expensive to build.

[Lemmy]

Sadly, that'd be "cruel and unusual punishment" and strictly forbidden under the Charter. They'd rather lie around in their cells in Kingston, smoking cigarettes and getting degrees from Queen's on the taxpayers' tab.

[Thanos]

Sounds positive for non-violent offenders and those who committed a one-time-only crime of passion. Doubt it'd work at all on hard-core gang-bangers, organized crime types, or racial supremacists. All those ones are way too far gone and fucked in the head to ever be reached or changed.

[andyt]

$1:

The first person we see on the island, on a wooden verandah outside a modern bungalow, is a man in swimming trunks stretched out on a sun lounger. Nils is 36. He was given a 16-year sentence for shooting dead a fellow amphetamine smuggler over an unpaid debt. Now he's relaxing between his shifts as a ferry worker.

'I immediately trained to be a ferry worker. I'm going on a maritime course at university. I want to be a commercial captain when I get out. Normally all you leave prison with is two bin bags of clothes. It's like your life has been on pause. You just go on with all the bad habits you had before you went in....'


And yet, an extensive new study undertaken by researchers across all the Nordic countries reveals that the reoffending average across Europe is about 70-75 per cent. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the average is 30 per cent. In Norway it is 20 per cent. Thus Bastoy, at just 16 per cent, has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe...


'Both society and the individual simply have to put aside their desire for revenge, and stop focusing on prisons as places of punishment and pain. Depriving a person of their freedom for a period of time is sufficient punishment in itself without any need whatsoever for harsh prison conditions.

[GreenTiger]

Thanos Thanos:

Sounds positive for non-violent offenders and those who committed a one-time-only crime of passion. Doubt it'd work at all on hard-core gang-bangers, organized crime types, or racial supremacists. All those ones are way too far gone and fucked in the head to ever be reached or changed.

Agreed. The low risk folks can be sent to area where a lot of work needs to be down, Put them up in good housing and it can work out well for the state and the non-violent offenders. The other hard core types I would expect nothing but trouble.

[Bacardi4206]

Can't argue with the results but I can't get around the idea of treating people who've murdered people like royalty. It just isn't right. You need a good combination of punishment and re-habilation. You can't just go and murder somebody, spend several months tanning and come back to society. That's just fucked.

[Freakinoldguy]

Agreed.

I could just imagine if there was a prison like this in Canada for murderers, where you could do a couple of years in a resort like atmosphere and be back out on the street in no time. We'd have it full in an hour and our murder rate would skyrocket.

Norwegian society and Canadian society aren't anywhere the same and claiming that just because it worked in Norway means it would work in Canada is being a bit optomistic.

[andyt]

So Norwegian murderers are different than Canadian murderers?

[martin14]

Wouldn't want to be a victim of crime in Norway.

[andyt]

You mean it's better to be a victim of crime in Canada, where you're much more likely to be victimized by a repeat offender?

[sandorski]

Certain Murderers shouldn't be given this treatment. In this guys case I have a hard time being too upset about it. If this type of Prison produces productive members of Society, it's really hard to reject the concept outright.