Where convicts lead the good life

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In Norway, even murders and rapists have a shot at landing in "open prison."

By Gwladys Fouche — Special to GlobalPost

Published: October 19, 2009 06:35 ET

An inmate enjoys the sun outside his house at Bastoey Prison in Norway. (©Fredrik Naumann/Felix Features)

OSLO, Norway — The first time I went to prison, it was to an idyllic place with lush woodland, bright-colored houses and the waters of the Oslo fjord sparkling in the summer sun.

It was July 2006 and I was visiting Bastoey, an open prison 45 miles south of the Norwegian capital. It is home to about 115 detainees, including murderers, rapists and other felons, who enjoy activities not usually associated with prisons.

In summer, they can improve their backhand on the tennis court, ride a horse in the forest and hit the beach for a swim. In winter, they can go cross-country skiing or participate in the prison's ski-jumping competition.

Inmates work between 8:15 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The island is a farm, so there are cattle to tend, timber to cut and organic crops to grow. Inmates also work at a sawmill, using axes, knives and saws. Another job is to restore wooden houses dotted around the island. Based on their time in Bastoey, many men will obtain professional qualifications.

After work, inmates retreat to their homes: comfortable wooden houses shared between four to six inmates.

Bastoey is based on the idea that traditional, repressive prisons do not work.

"The biggest mistake that our societies have made is to believe that you must punish hard to change criminals," explained Oeyvind Alnaes, Bastoey's then-prison governor. "This is wrong. The big closed prisons are criminal schools. If you treat people badly, they will behave badly. Anyone can be a citizen if we treat them well, respect them, and give them challenges and demands."

Alnaes' views reflect the way Norway and the rest of Scandinavia run their penal systems. In Norway, there are no death sentences — or even life sentences. The maximum jail term anyone can receive is 21 years, including for murder. Most people will serve two-thirds of their term before being released. Convicts retain the right to vote and can exercise it while in jail.

All inmates start their sentence in a traditional, closed prison. These more secure facilities share some of the ills their American counterparts are known for, including high drug abuse, lack of education and job opportunities, which means most detainees spend 23 out of 24 hours locked in their cells. Even so, the experience of closed prisons here is quite different from those of prisons abroad.

The second time I went to prison was in September, to a high-security detention facility in central Oslo. I was there to meet Bjoernar Dahl, a 43-year-old inmate who, a few days before, had been debating crime policy with the justice minister and an opposition politician, during a primetime television election debate. The debate was broadcast live from inside the prison walls, in front of an audience of inmates and guards.

david wayne osedach, October 19, 2009 15:24 ET

It sounds like a great place to go if you must spend time in jail. What's their recidivism rate?

SpyPirates, October 20, 2009 00:29 ET

I wonder this too, only without implying that the rate is higher than that in a traditional prison system. I'm not well-read on the prison system, but I'm gonna guess the extent to which a prisoner is punished does not positively correlate with recidivism rates

Nato4HowardLeague, October 20, 2009 06:04 ET

LEARN FROM NORWAY? The Norway Model provides a strong comparator and possible alternative to the penal present system in the UK. It acknowledges that Prison's should not be places ineffective punishment but places of transformation. The transparency of their system that still employs the prisoners in hard work seems to be delivering lower incarceration rates (better than the USA) and encourages open debate about how the criminal system works. (It would be interesting to find out how the system has impacted on re-offence rates in Norway also) but nevertheless opening up the prison system is something that ought to be explored. The Howard League for Penal Reform has identified an urgent need for resolving the prison overcrowding and high re-offence rates. Find out more here: http://www.howardleague.org/overcrowding/

You could look it up, October 22, 2009 18:47 ET

Prison policy, incarceration rate; cause, effect ... Hmmm.

Norway is historically a socially homogeneous, egalitarian and transparent society; these factors discourage certain types of criminality and contribute to the low incarceration figures cited in the article. It would be interesting to find out how much impact prison conditions have on such figures.

Also, I think you could confirm anecdotally, by asking around, that there is a large and growing amount of casual violence and property crime in Norwegian towns (whether or not liberal criminal policies contribute to this), and that Norwegian police are slower to take action on criminal complaints than in the UK or the US -- and not at all slow to drop prosecutions on the (supposed) grounds of lack of evidence.

The police union is strong in Norway, in a country of strong unions. I would say based on personal observation and familiarity with crime coverage in Norwegian newspapers that cops routinely refuse risky work, they move in large, well-equipped (okay, except for weapons) groups if at all and they take no overtime except in strict accordance with relevant rules, for better or worse. One result is chronic undermanning. In a country famous for alcohol-fueled street brawls, the police are content to leave as much law enforcement as possible to the bar bouncers, who seem well qualified for their work at least in respect of their proactive readiness to beat the hell out of people.

My point is that low incarceration rates may have multiple causes; I have suggested some possiblities (mostly under two broad headings: docile Norwegians, lax policing). The author of the article focuses on another possibility: the thesis that enlightened treatment of criminals reduces the number of people who need to be imprisoned. I am sceptical.

Karen Anne, October 23, 2009 16:20 ET

Let me get this straight, someone takes someone else's life, or damages them emotionally forever, and in exchange, they get an idyllic life? That's beyond crazy, it's shameful.

Ryan Morkulven, March 15, 2010 01:14 ET

It is not shameful at all. Think about it, Norway's goal is not vengeance. Vengeance does not improve society. Norway's goal is to diminish crime and their methods are extremely effective. You must realize that it is not the individual that is to blame, but their environment which influenced their criminal behavior. Not many systems of government realize the profound role of environment on behavior. Norway does, and as a result, they have an extremely low crime rate.

Thinkabouit, February 7, 2010 18:09 ET

The comment here about lax Norwegian police force, etc. is only speculation and shouldn't be considered as fact. This system works because it treats the offender as a human being capable of redeeming his actions. The incarcerated criminal begins his sentence in a high security prison and by degrees as he serves his time, he is introduced to environments that are less confining as he works through his issues. For example, one murderer was convicted of killing 3 people with a chain saw in the woods. In the final stage of his rehabilitation, he was cutting wood on this island. His environment was changing subtly as he transitioned to a normal environment. In the end he was successfully rehabilitated and has not been a problem since.
The US System is still locked into a Victorian moralistic mindset that demands retribution without mercy, as dated and mindless as it seems to the rest of the progressively minded world.