Christian Patterson
Professor Mangini english composition II Nov, 30 2017 American prisons mirroring the Norwegians prison system America should revise its prison system model to be more like Norway because over time we have seen that people from America once released the incarceration are often more than not going back to prison. Norway’s recidivism rate is 20 percent while Americas is at 67 percent now there can be plenty of variables that play a part in this problem. The judicial system in America isn’t know for keeping its prisoners from returning, I believe the people of the communities of the convicts play a huge part in them going back to prison these convicted felons are given a stigma that will forever be attach to their names and when a person is released from prison its makes it so much harder for the person to find jobs because if the employer does a background check then it will show up on his or her record discouraging the employer to hire them, Stigma makes it so that people in the community are not to trust them just by knowing that they been to prison and prison is associated with heinous crimes like murder and rape. In Norway base on what was seen rom the movie “Where to Invade Next” the people seemed content on the prison systems ability to rehabilitate the felons and have the same trust in them once they’ve gotten out and that is the complete opposite of what happens here; So if we are to change our system we need to change the people. The Norwegian hold for the amount of prisoners is at 3,933 as of the January 9th 2017 which is significantly low especially compared to the Unites States which total prison population is 2,145,100 I’m not saying they should make their prisons as luxurious as the the Norwegian prison but make it a little less cruel give the prisoners a opportunity to do something once they get out, instead of giving them a college degree make them take up trades a field in trades would be way easier to find a job to support themselves than any field their degree is in. The people who are in prison in Norway are in there for theft crime and most of the violent crimes they have are gang related and or involves drug trafficking. (Sterbenz) by those numbers and the reasons people go to prison there is easy to say that they are doing something right and with them having the lowest recidivism rate in the word they must be doing something right which also leads me to believe that their restorative justice is working where as ours isn’t since we have the highest recidivism rate in the world at 76.6 percent; so if we don’t take action our recidivism rate wont go down and more money will be spent on prisons. If we were to change the programs in the prisons, we may have a better out come with the people we release if the only programs we have for people in educational and boot camps. Yes, it is nice to have an education but let’s be honest being an ex convict is a title that nobody wants to hear at a job interview or wants to see on a background check and will deter the chances of the person looking for a job. With this deterrent the ex convict will be force to provide for himself and or family by illegal means which causes them to go back to prison and rises the recidivism rate. The Norwegians programs for rehabilitation is really different “Haden prison has jogging trails, a sound both, and a system made to prepare the inmates for reintegration. The facility attempts to give prisoners a life that is very close to the life that is outside, also including different programs of vocational training where they do assembly workshops, woodworking, cooking class, and recording music”. ( NorweiganAmerican.com) The Norwegian judicial system has a strong belief that the guards can inmates should form bonds an be friends with each other. This may sound Ludacris but in the documentary “Where to Invade Next the guards seemed to have a lot of zeal to the idea of being friends, and not needing any other weapon the only weapon they need is their mouth according to the prison guards in the video. Now this is not an aspect that I would like to change in the in the American prison system in its entirety, I would say let’s have it be friendly in minimum security prisons because the risk of a violent situation is less likely to break out. Another prison in Norway is Bastøy prison it has similar means as Halden. Bastøy makes all of the imamates work from 8:30 A.M to 3:30 P.M during the week days but unlike the Halden prison they don’t put their inmate’s in workshops and other means along those line, instead they give them access to the library, the beach and other recreational things during the time period. Now I wont say use the Bastøy prison methods because I don’t think it will keep people from coming back but will make them want to go back, on the other hand Halden prison system methods I believe will have a positive affect on the inmate’s keeping them from returning and they will leave with a useful tool that can (Norweiganamerican .com) only 20 percent of the people released from the prisons in Norway go back within the 2 years of being released but prisoners released from Bastøy percentage is at 16 percent. Yes, the country Norway is very small compared to the United States but Ryan king had stated that “one should focus on what a country is doing or isn’t doing to to tackle re-offensive rates America has made attempts to lower the return rates but the programs they try are completely different and are temporary and when the people leave this temporary program are lost on what to do. So if we copy the methods used in Halden prison and make the inmates that are not in there for life do these workshops especially the ones that sentence to 5 years or less and or maybe the people who are under a certain age should be force to take part in these activities. The American prison systems on average spend 80 billion on incarceration a year while the Norwegians spend 45 billion a year and avoiding the scrutiny that the American prisons get for being to harsh with the sentencing, racial disparities, and its frequency to put people in solitary confinement. (Picchi) There are things that we can take and put into consideration and it may lower the complaints about the American judicial system, rates of people returning. There are other reasons for why and how Norway prison is having such great results, one example of why their results are so good is because the people in the country have faith in their restorative system. That is an aspect that Americans don’t have great confidence in it and this cause a domino effect for the former inmates. A quick synopsis of this is a person release from prison for something minor or something they weren’t directly involved in, they get out trying looking for a job but the only they they got is a college degree from prison and a criminal record, the employer see he has a degree but also see he is an ex felon and that becomes a deterrent to him and makes wont nothing to do with him so the guy will be force to do illegal things just to provide for himself. But if we do the Norwegian way of giving them a trade instead of a degree they we be better off trying to provide for themselves and may possibly become entrepreneurs and create and benefit society and provide more jobs, lower the unemployment rate. For the United States to successfully mirror the Norwegians ways of success I believe we should redirect the usage of money, there is a total of 80 billion being used on state and federal prisons if the if Norway can spend half the money that the U.S. spends when should be able to redirect some of the 80 billion to trying different restorative methods, more human living conditions. Doing this may cause change in the minds of some.
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