Prisons In A Nordic Prison

In the sharp contrast, the European system of treating the deviants is vastly different in the beliefs and methods. In Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, (Doleschal, 1977) they believe that the treatment is better than the prison or death. For example, the Netherlands has “ 18 persons per 100,000 population, 1/12 of the U.S. rate of 215 per 100,000”(Doleschal, p.52) which is amazing if it did happen in America. The reason for abolishing prisons’ conditions is that the environment of the isolation and deprivation did harm than good to the prisoners and created the cycles of violence. In Denmark and Sweden, Doleschal illustrated the humane conditions that Europe preferred in the prisons,

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

In contrast, Hernu’s story “Norway’s Ideal Prison” from One World, Many Cultures talks about the world’s first human “Ecological Prison” on Bastoy Island, Norway. Bastoy Prison is Norway’s largest low-security prison. On the island murders and other violent felons are found, but the guards trust them with knives, chainsaws, and other weapons. “‘I have not had one violent incident here,’ the governor continues. ‘One inmate did managed to escape by stealing a fishing boat one night, and his punishment was to be sent back to a closed prison’” (Hernu 247). Bastoy prison is pretty lenient, and laid back when it comes to prisoners but if you break any of the rules you will be sent back immediately. Frank, a cattle herder said, “‘…For the first time in my life I feel motivated and believe in myself. I really believe I can break my circle of crime’” (Hernu 250). The results Bastoy Prison has produced shows that the “Ecological Prison” does work.

Screened by director Matthew Pillischer, as a way to educate the masses and advocate change on the issue of overcrowding at the Philadelphia county prison, the documentary soon took a turn to address the issue of mass incarceration across the United

Prison’s were established a long time ago to try to put an end to the rapidly increasing crime rate, however over time we are seeing the effectiveness of the most prisons decreasing. As a result of this epidemic, prisons have a higher recidivism rate and over 40 percents are currently operating over maximum capacity (Holder.) Through different types of research, we are finding out that our prison systems are no longer effective and there is a serious need for improvement. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we incarcerate almost ¼ of the worlds prisoners (Holder.)

Through the obvious statistical evidence of the United States Prison system and the exploration of detrimental prison culture it becomes apparent that the system needs to be reformed. Prisons are not cost effective and they do not provide the right correctional help. The United States prison system is deeply flawed. Prison creates a culture that is detrimental to prisoners and all

From 1973 to 2000 the imprisonment rate in the U.S has increased by a multiple of four, while the actual crime rate saw no such increase over that period. (Visher and Travis, 2003, p. 89-90) Historically, the prison system in America had always been marred with inadequacies and failures, specifically in rehabilitating prisoners. The significant increase in incarceration rates have put an even greater burden on the already inefficient prison system. In reality, the prison system does not actually function as a means of rehabilitating prisoners, and real purpose of the institute is to basically keep the “deplorables” of society away from the public eye. It serves as a tool to degrade members of society to the bottom of the social ladder and strip them of their most basic rights. For many prisoners, rehabilitation comes in the form of “corrections” which is largely characterized by the humiliation, abuse, and subjugation of inmates by correction officers. This form of rehabilitation is largely malicious and ineffective in its procedures and outcomes. Often times inmates, leave prison more emotionally and physically damaged that they were upon entrance as a consequence of the dismal conditions they were subjugated to. The current high rates of recidivism have testified to the fact that our prisons have failed as a deterrent. As a result, it must be

“Rehabilitation Over Incarceration” is an essay written by a K-State student on the issue of prisoners being rehabilitated back into the real world/ rather than imprisoning, rehabilitating into society. The writer focuses on Norway’s prison system versus the United States as well as education between prisoners in the two country’s systems. Next, the writer focuses on the values of educating the U.S. prisoners, including benefits as well as outlined cost to do so. Lastly, the student asks us the why portion which includes statistics on ethnicities in colleges and universities (1-9).

The prisons in America seem to cause more problems than assistance in today's society. The country's penal system is overcrowded, expensive, and some argue that is ineffective as well as inefficient. The costs to staff and support these facilities increase dramatically every year. Prisons, which are supposed to be correctional facilities, are currently filled with violence and hostility. These institutions are created to control crime by deterrence, incapacitating criminals, which protects society from potentially dangerous criminals, but it is hard to tell if this is being accomplished.

There are more people incarcerated in the United States of America than any other country in the world willing to count their inmates (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016). How can this be? Foremost, the criminal justice system in the United States of America (which is made up of the police, the courts, and the corrections) is not working toward reducing mass incarceration the way it should be. The criminal justice system is set up strategically to accomplish two goals: to bring in money and to gain power. The byproducts of achieving these two goals are mass incarceration, ethnic and racial profiling, and minimal justice. The system needs to change its goals to: reducing crime and doing justice. The police, the courts, and the correctional system all feed off of one another and affect each other. Therefore, if real change is going to be made, it needs to happen in all three branches of the criminal justice system. A system that seems to be working well is in Norway. Norway’s criminal justice system does not look like America’s system. The criminal justice system in Norway has different philosophies concerning crime, justice, and the corrections. "We don 't look at our inmates as criminals, but rather as regular people who have committed a crime." (Skulberg, 2010, p. 73) This is a quote from a Norwegian prison guard giving an example of the ideology in Norway. In order for the United States to reduce crime and to have true justice, first, the policing model needs to change

Growing up, we are surrounded with images of the prison. In movies, we see a false reality of the prison, which leads us to believe we know what life is like in the prison. Few people know the truth of the prison system, this contributes to the normalization of the prison and the systematic incarceration.When Angela Davis interviewed women in three women’s prisons, she was astonished to find their prior awareness of prison came from the many Hollywood films they had seen.

“Problem with Prisons is written by Allison Torres Burka. This article seeks to answer many questions about the problems American prisons face. The first questions is why are there so many prisoners in the United States versus the rest of the world. Allison talks to David Fathi, the director of the National Prison Project seeking this answer among others. David says that the prison overcrowding has racial and political roots. Allison also asked David, “What is the NPP doing to reduce the rate of incarceration? His answer was educating the public who vote for legislation that we can have a safe community with a fraction of incarcerated individuals. He advised that we model after other countries. Another question that was asked was; “What are

On Norway, we see and extremely different view of how to treat criminals. They as serving prisoner of Skien maximum security prison, Baster Petter states “give us trust and responsibility.” Despite the gravity of the crimes, the loss of liberty was all the punishment they suffer. They even have cells, televisions, computers, integral showers and sanitations. In addition, the maximum sentence is only twenty-one years and with no death penalty.

In the United States crime rates have been on a decline for years, but the United States still has the largest number of people incarcerated in the world. The “war on drugs” as well as policy’s by the government to be “tough on crime” has lead to the uprising of corporate prisons, which are known as for-profit prisons, and private prisons. Private prisons have also lead to States, and federal prisons to become worse when it comes to programs to rehabilitate those who are incarcerated, so that they can function in society as a productive member of it. The conflict between private prisons, and States/federal prisons has worsened prison conditions for both men, and women who are incarcerated.

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.