How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours

[Tommy Tainant]

How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours

What is the point of sending someone to prison - retribution or rehabilitation? Twenty years ago, Norway moved away from a punitive "lock-up" approach and sharply cut reoffending rates. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby went to see the system in action, and to meet prison officers trained to serve as mentors and role models for prisoners.

"OK, and now put your big toes together and put your bum behind you!" calls the enthusiastic yoga instructor in English to the 20 or so participants who are shuffling into child's pose on rubber mats spread out on the grass in the faint early morning sunshine.

"Can you feel the stretch?" she gently asks a heavily tattooed man as she settles his ruffled T-shirt and smoothes his wide back with her hand. "It's OK, yeah?"

It could be a yoga class at any holistic health retreat anywhere in the world but the participants here at Norway's maximum security Halden Prison are rather far removed from the usual yummy mummy spa clientele. Barefoot murderers, rapists and drug smugglers practise downward-facing dog and the lotus position alongside their prison officers, each participant fully concentrating on the clear instructions from the teacher.

"It calms them," says prison governor Are Hoidal approvingly, as we watch from the sidelines. "We don't want anger and violence in this place. We want calm and peaceful inmates."

It sounds a bit soft but it is working, Re-offending rates cut to 20%. Its 50% in the UK.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Norwegian society is night and day from American and British. I definitely believe that our criminal justice system is broken and maybe the Norwegian system described here could work for some, but certainly not everyone.

 

[westwall]

How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours

What is the point of sending someone to prison - retribution or rehabilitation? Twenty years ago, Norway moved away from a punitive "lock-up" approach and sharply cut reoffending rates. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby went to see the system in action, and to meet prison officers trained to serve as mentors and role models for prisoners.

"OK, and now put your big toes together and put your bum behind you!" calls the enthusiastic yoga instructor in English to the 20 or so participants who are shuffling into child's pose on rubber mats spread out on the grass in the faint early morning sunshine.

"Can you feel the stretch?" she gently asks a heavily tattooed man as she settles his ruffled T-shirt and smoothes his wide back with her hand. "It's OK, yeah?"

It could be a yoga class at any holistic health retreat anywhere in the world but the participants here at Norway's maximum security Halden Prison are rather far removed from the usual yummy mummy spa clientele. Barefoot murderers, rapists and drug smugglers practise downward-facing dog and the lotus position alongside their prison officers, each participant fully concentrating on the clear instructions from the teacher.

"It calms them," says prison governor Are Hoidal approvingly, as we watch from the sidelines. "We don't want anger and violence in this place. We want calm and peaceful inmates."

It sounds a bit soft but it is working, Re-offending rates cut to 20%. Its 50% in the UK.

Yeppers, i am sure that Norwegians are looking forward to when Anders Breivik is released in a few more years. Yep, real upstanding citizen there!

 

[Tommy Tainant]

How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours

What is the point of sending someone to prison - retribution or rehabilitation? Twenty years ago, Norway moved away from a punitive "lock-up" approach and sharply cut reoffending rates. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby went to see the system in action, and to meet prison officers trained to serve as mentors and role models for prisoners.

"OK, and now put your big toes together and put your bum behind you!" calls the enthusiastic yoga instructor in English to the 20 or so participants who are shuffling into child's pose on rubber mats spread out on the grass in the faint early morning sunshine.

"Can you feel the stretch?" she gently asks a heavily tattooed man as she settles his ruffled T-shirt and smoothes his wide back with her hand. "It's OK, yeah?"

It could be a yoga class at any holistic health retreat anywhere in the world but the participants here at Norway's maximum security Halden Prison are rather far removed from the usual yummy mummy spa clientele. Barefoot murderers, rapists and drug smugglers practise downward-facing dog and the lotus position alongside their prison officers, each participant fully concentrating on the clear instructions from the teacher.

"It calms them," says prison governor Are Hoidal approvingly, as we watch from the sidelines. "We don't want anger and violence in this place. We want calm and peaceful inmates."

It sounds a bit soft but it is working, Re-offending rates cut to 20%. Its 50% in the UK.

Yeppers, i am sure that Norwegians are looking forward to when Anders Breivik is released in a few more years. Yep, real upstanding citizen there!

I think that some cons are too far gone for even this programme. But not all cons are Breivik.

 

[shockedcanadian]

I think an unbalanced punitive system is one of the worst ways to extinguish potential in a society. Most criminals are a product of their environment, I've seen it with my own two eyes growing up in a less than desirable neighbourhood. Good, intelligent kids, lead down the garden path by some scumbag undercover POS who KNOWS he is building his own business and career, to hell with some unlucky young idiot. Ultimately, there are people you can save and who are born again, others, obviously must not be free due to their ever present threat to society.

In Canada we have a MASSIVE SIC- Security Industrial Complex, that is more interested in funding their obese behinds and getting opportunities for their low performing kids. Through their deception, outright lying, cheating and themselves engaging in criminal, immoral and dishonest tactics, they've successfully ensured Canada will be a laggard economy for the next 100 years.

Nothing worse than seeing the nepotism of the stupid being rewarded with $125k a year jobs all because of the racket they run which some higher up pariah was happy to embrace as it increased his funding.

The difference between a good and bad officer, in particular the covert apparatus; can be measured in light years. Yet, both are equally and thoroughly protected from accountability, and worse, the bad officer most certainly is rewarded for his "good work", while the good officer is asked "why didn't you find something, ANYTHING on Subject B?" Even if there is nothing on Subject B to be found.

There is a middle ground to justice, as far as I am concerned it starts with those delivering justice. If you have a corrupt, exploitive system, your entire society will reap what they sow. I remind you all how many Canadians have left Canada forever, most in the USA for a reason. Sadly, and this is important; I'm sure some NYPD officer (they have a close relationship with TPS) will accept at face value the details and allegations against Canadians, without appreciating the vast differences in systems. Even more compelling are the differences in process and honestly between say the FBI and Texas Rangers vs TPS or RCMP.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Norwegian society is night and day from American and British. I definitely believe that our criminal justice system is broken and maybe the Norwegian system described here could work for some, but certainly not everyone.

I dont know what the re-offending rates are like in the US but our jails are rammed full of re-offenders. They are locked in a cell for most of the day because there is no money to provide anything constructive for them to do. The problem is that money for better prisons is not a vote winner. And that is where it ends I fear.

 

[harmonica]

....it [ crime/prisoners/etc ] needs to be attacked from many angles--like other tough problems
...the main cause are kids having kids/failed culture cycle
..comparison with the US is wrong
US population 300 million..Norway 5 million
US prison rate around 700 per 100,000...Norway around 80
the cultures are so much different