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Stephen Strauss-Walsh is a PhD student in Law at the University of Limerick. He co-authored a piece of research on deaths of people in prison custody which is due to be presented to the Minister for Justice. Here he discusses his thoughts on the Irish penal system following his work within it.
MOST PEOPLE WHO have researched and looked inside a prison are struck by just how oppressed and forgotten its occupants are.
Prison does not cure prisoners. They are not places that effectively punish crime. They just produce criminals who move through prison as if it were a revolving door.
I was told by a prison guard that before the economic crash, every year when December would roll around inmates would be banging the door down to get into the sewing room to make Santa hats for the sick children that were staying in the children’s hospital in Crumlin.
“Of course that’s all gone with the budget cuts,” he informed me.
The bakery was much the same. “We used to have donuts down here,” one guard said, “but health and safety shut us down.”
The head chef informed me that each prisoner’s food used to cost €5 a day, but again cutbacks have whittled that down to closer to €4. There are people in this country actually living on the price of a Starbucks cup of a coffee every day.
There is, at present, a view in the media and public that prisons are hostels. Although the standards of prisons have increased in recent years, this could not be further from the truth.
It may seem somewhat ridiculous to have to reiterate such a point but contrary to what you might read, prison is not a nice environment. They are disheartening, demeaning (both to humanity and the individual concerned) and rarely improve the lot of the citizens that they claim.
The question must be asked as to how exactly the penal system can be reformed and what a potentially better system might look like.
I think the implication of our research is that it will raise weighty questions about the nature of crime and punishment in Ireland.
While the research does not provide any definite solutions, it clarifies the questions that we should be asking which is just as important. At present reports are issued on prison conditions but there is a painful lack of data around actual fatalities in prison, what has actually happened and more importantly why has it happened?
It is common knowledge that deaths from suicide and drug overdoses are common in Irish prisons and it is worth bearing in mind that these are all usually avoidable deaths, if proper systems were put in place to prevent them.
It is also worth considering that these prisoners are not a foreign abstraction: they are people too with hopes and dreams just like you. They could be any one of us if we were to just find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. Don’t forget that even the great Mahatma Ghandi had to go to jail for his beliefs on occasion.
The deaths in custody project was an attempt to tackle these issues.
Our University of Limerick-based group studied the grim circumstances surrounding deaths in custody across numerous Common Law jurisdictions (including Ireland) and tried to blend this data and draw practical recommendations from it.
These recommendations will eventually form the basis for the deaths in custody database.
The Inspector of Prisons Judge Michael Reilly has stated that, “This database will be an important resource for my office and the state in the years to come, informing stakeholders and it is hoped public policy.”
The work will be presented to the Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald as it demands urgent action from both the government (and if that is not forthcoming) the people who actually voted and put them there.
As part of this project, our research group was invited to visit Mountjoy Prison to view the reforms that have occurred there in recent years. We saw the handiwork, the baking skills and the artistry… in short the great reserves of talent left untapped by mainstream society.
Yet what always struck me about the workshops which allowed prisoners to while away their uneventful hours was that such activity is wholly unproductive and does not help break the cycle of crime.
A guard told me of three generations of a family who were all working on a project at the same time together in prison. This continues to routinely happen because most of the activities that are available in our prisons do not provide proper qualifications to the prisoners who end up with neither jobs nor obligations and return to prison again and again and again.
The whole idea behind the movement towards an Irish penal database was reform – an attempt to improve the conditions of prison life and to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to prolong that life so it can run its natural course.
Research suggests that the mere establishment of a database can actually save lives and if even one life is saved as a consequence of my endeavours, I will feel that I will have made a contribution to the humanisation of penality in this State.
My personal goal for this project was to effect change and when such a database is eventually established, I will have helped improve the lives of an oppressed group of people and for me there can be no greater reward than that.
I began this article by demonstrating the painful conditions that prisoners have to labour under every day. I should not say live because it is not proper living in my mind. I also attempted to convey how the current penal system is not fit for purpose by highlighting crime’s vicious circle. We cannot keep going the way we are going; most prisons are almost full to capacity.
When I was invited into Mountjoy, they were constructing a new wing but what happens when that wing is full? What they do we do with all these people who are systematically segregated and demonised? My hope for the future of this project is that it might help humanise prisoners and remind people of their plight.
In so doing, we might come to the realisation that treating prisoners better may actually yield better results than treating them like they don’t have any social value. These are our own people; we should start to treat them like it.
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I believe in giving people second chances, but many prison regulars have 100+ previous convictions and are beyond offering anything to society. If they were sent to pay their and work on a potato farm on the Aran Islands they might be less of a burden on society.
How do you expect everyone to get an equal footing in life?? There are bad people in every walk of life. Yes, there are more in disadvantaged areas but I think in the end it mainly boils down to parenting and how you were brought up. People from disadvantaged areas can be brought up well too but when $cum bring up a child it only has one outcome unfortunately, regardless of finances.
@Random_paddy:
Prison does not cure criminals never mind punish crime.
This us the basic issue, while I commend the research I wonder if the scope of the project dictates the outcome. The ability to further indoctrinate a criminal is an issue around the world. As usual we flow three us after the UK in terms of “reform” ideas. We should have greater debate in the purpose I’d prison; to reform or to punish. It appears impossible to achieve both.
@David O’Malley: Well that is not entirely true as Scandinavian countries and some, in particular, have the lowest reoffending rates in the world with better policy. There is plenty of positive examples, research it just takes the will and want to implement it.
clever if pigs could fly
There is a “joke” doing the rounds! ….”Guy meets a homeless man on the street, asks him about his circumstances. Man says ” until last week I had everything, roof over my head, three meals a day, TV sat channels, access to a library and gym and was doing a a degree. Then they let me out of prison…..
@Bill Madden: What’s your point ? I say if he was developing to a satisfactory level after his release he should have been admitted for further training and maybe he would have a prosperous and bright future and be contributing to society
Don’t forget the free medical care and dental treatments
Why is it that people who havent a clue about prisons always think prisoners are treated bad ? Its such a stereotype its sad. Education wise you can achieve anything you aspire to in prison. Like anything in life if its an achievement you have to make sacrefices. Prisoners are treated very well in this country, its IPS policy and if you dont follow it as an employee you ll pay the price.
Or the cosmetic surgery aswell ..
Whether prisons are comfortable or not, whether there are perks or not, whether cells are damp pits or holiday camps is all irrelevant. Does prison rehabilitate people into society? If not, what can be done to achieve this? That’s what should be debated. Not the colour of the paint on the walls.
The author of this article is so far off the mark its scary. An educated man with no street smarts. I get that he means well but at no point did he give a direct examples of how our prisons dont work. Making santa hats and donnuts no longer been available is seen as a bad thing ? What use is that to you in the real world ? In wheatfield prison you have workshops where you can pick up basic skills in carpentry, welding, tiling, bricklaying & plastering. Why should you get a full qualification. It takes four years working 40hrs a week to gain a qualification in the real world. What it does is give you a head start should you want to do it when you get out. Education ? oppurtunities endless plus you have loads of uninterupted time to study. Article baffles me
Peter The unfortunate reality of prisoners lifes is very sad. The damage is done from childhood. They have in one form or another been in prisons all there lives. We all want to feel part of a group in life. Football teams, in school, our familys etc Prisons sadly offer some people there only chance to be part if a group. Everybody in our society wants rehabillitation to work but the reality is there is a certain section in our society who feel at home in prison.
@Derek Trotter: Early years interventions is where it needs to start isn’t it? It’s way too late even by the teenager years. You obviously work in or around the system. What do you think could be done in the early years?
Marlow I really dont know, I work as a prison officer. I see this sad reality on a daily basis. Little kids look up to their parents and catching the problem here is key. Daddy works as a builder his son becomes a builder. Daddy goes to the jail his son goes to jail. In the article he says 3 generations working on a project. Thats not uncommon in our jails.
@Derek Trotter: Yes I’ve also seen some of how it works first hand. We really could do with policy-makers, and academics, who start by talking to people on the shop floor. In fact, sensible policy making should pretty much ignore the views of everyone who works above that level. It works the other way around right now.
@Derek and Marlow, would you advocate the rehabilitation of families outside of the prison environment?
Marlow Thats how it works in all walks of life. An arcitect designs a building but the tradesmen make it happen. I find it baffling how articles keep poping up on the journal about rehabillitation. Benardos care centre for young kids was closed down in finglas. The staff there was constanly been treatened and abused until it became no longer safe to run. The social workers there took kids in during the day and gave them love. Thats rehabillitation in my eyes, giving kids hope. Thats gone now.
Peter smyth You would have to go into more detail. Your question is to brief. If mam or dad is in jail then no. If the get involved with the prison, its services and what it has to offer, then yes. But your question is so brief crimes committed relationship with children already etc etc
@Peter Smyth: I believe that sustained major changes in beliefs and behaviours in adulthood are rare and only possible if the individual is willing to do the hard work. Most people, criminals or not, are not willing. The same applies to any family.
The course of children’s lives, however, can be changed. That’s not rehabilitation, it’s prevention. Intensive parenting support within such families can probably help but, again, only if at least one parent or caregiver is willing to break what are very often inter-generational patterns.
But the big picture change that I believe needs to happen is that there needs to be useful, decent work available for the unskilled and semi skilled in our society. That class once had a tradition of pride in good craftsmanship and a hard worker earned respect. Such jobs once supported families and gave people meaning, respect from their peers, community and structure.
The wage-earning class in western societies need to be permitted to prosper again. That absolutely would reduce crime over time.
I suppose what I’m getting at is this. You work in the Prison System and it seems that you wish the system to remain unchanged and the role of you job to remain unchanged but somehow, somewhere else, rehabilitation to happen. Why have prisons and prison officers then. Look, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert. I do know though, if something isn’t working you change that something. Not something else. Or maybe both. How to change it? How would I know?
Well peter I wish the system to remain unchanged ? Your wrong there. Im surrounded by herion addicts willing to smoke tin foil in any where. Then watch them for days coming down . Yeah id hate that to change I love my job. You most certainly are not an expert but you most certainly have an opinion. I believe in prevention, lets prevent the kid born today not go to jail in 18 years time. I believe from experience its a lot harder to change an adults habbits than a kid. Prison officers are there for security by the way. We are savagely outnumbered by the way.
@Peter Smyth: This ‘it seems’ phrase needs burying. It invariably means ‘what I’m reading into what you wrote is’ and it’s pretty much always a deliberately unfair inference.
If you really want to know how to change it, ask why Barnardos were threatened and abused in Finglas. That nitty gritty, ugly stuff is at the heart of the problem.
Change for the sake of change, or change according to some academic, abstract, utopian blueprint, is a disastrous idea because human beings simply aren’t as smart as we like to think we are. Changes based on observation of reality, up close, and what has historically worked here and elsewhere, those can be beneficial changes.
I never said you love your job. It’s a job I couldn’t do. I would lime to see the system changed to improve things for all involved, including the prisoners. I am aware that you are directly involved and all I have is an opinion. But, this is a relevant place to express an opinion, misguided or not. Really, I suppose, I’m just wondering out loud in a way. My opinion can change. Most likely from those directly involved. Like yourself.
Peter You lost me when you said i dont want to see the system change or the role in my job to change. Peter I hate the reality i see everyday. I watch grown men ignore the fact they have children and spend every waking minute of the day in pursuit of herion. Thats the real life inside a prison. Prisoners are willing to cut somebody up to pieces for drugs. So when prison officers are trying to prevent this stuff from happening they also have the emotional ability to somehow normalise this. 5 officers from pats and one from portlaois have been hospitalised in the last week. I very much want change in my job.
At the end of the day, I’m only commenting on this because there is an article. It’s not something that directly impacts me on a daily basis and I’ll probably forget about it in a couple of days. For you however, it’s a daily reality. Sorry for being insensitive and thanks for sharing some of your story. No society current or past has achieved zero crime or universal rehabilitation. I guess it’s idealistic but either of those two would be nice!
Why don’t these do gooder bleeding heart types have the dame level of passion for the victims?
@Vincent Wallace:we are all victims as we have to pay for them to lie in their dens where they can smoke, drink and shootup all they want.
Who said that they don’t? Can’t you empathise with both sides in some cases?
@Clever Jake: Is it not grand that your sympathy is reserved for murderers, rapists, child abusers, robbers, those who attack old people and beat them up, and not for their victims. Maybe you should think of the people whose lives has been shattered by these poor dears in prison. I think You and Mr Double-barrelled PHD student should think of those innocents who lives have been ruined by those “poor dears ” in prison.
@Clever Jake: ya we dont want to see those poor gentle rapists and murderers suffer. heaven forbid!
I have said this before and will say it again now and most likely will again the future, You can provide all manner of Work and Training courses and all the Educational Courses you like but you can’t make the convicts take them up (the horse to water adage). Many of those currently locked up have zero interest in actually working for a living on the outside. As one guy put it once to me “why would I break me bo***x working for a pittance and paying taxes, when I can get me welfare, a medical card and a council flat and still deal drugs and earn more in a week than you can in a year”. These guys are career criminals from a long family history of career criminals and for many their kids and grandkids will be criminals. Trying to make Prisons something that they are not designed to be is always going to be doomed to failure. Prison is and always has been a place for society to punish those that refuse to obey the laws and rules of that society. And that is what is being ignored by all these academics that have never wore and walked in the shoes of a Prison Officer. If the Government want to know how best to run its Prisons then who better to ask than the Officers that actually work 24/7 on the floor (and I am not referring to Union Reps or middle management). Consult with those on the pointy end of the spear.
Well said , Mick …
Mick ditto.
A very good and logical argument when discussing “career criminals”. What about the petty criminals though? You know, the many that don’t fit your picture above. Surely something should be done the help those that can be helped? Why should they be hindered by “career criminals”?
@Peter Smyth: I don’t think career criminal and petty criminal are mutually exclusive. Presumably you mean someone who’s a once-off offender. I suspect those involved in the system will tell you that they’re not very common.
@Clever Jake: Since when have Drugs being legalised? I don’t seem to remember the Dail passing that legislation. Please enlighten us when did it happen?
What country has legalised the sale of Opiates, Cocaine, Methamphetamines etc on the open market?
@Peter Smyth:What would you call a Petty Criminal?
The dictionary can help you: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/petty-crime
Here’s the definition of petty crime http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/petty-crime
Hard drugs will never ever be legalised … same old arguement all the time regarding drugs .. what’s your views about the article ? What do you think about them not being able to sew or make doughnuts anymore ? These are very serious issues … according to the author ..
@Peter Smyth: @Peter Smyth: I didnt ask what the dictionary definition of petty crime was. I asked what is YOUR definition of a Petty Criminal?
Oh, well it would be the dictionary definition. I didn’t realise it was open to interpretation!
@Peter Smyth: What would you consider to be a Petty Crime? Fraud maybe? What about shop lifting? Or maybe Tobacco/ Fuel smuggling?
@Clever Jake: I will ask you again Where in the world have the open sale of Narcotics been made legal? And I don’t need a history lesson about what was once legal. Slavery was legal once too but should that make it right to legalise it again?
@Clever Jake: Eh, decriminalisation and legalisation are completely different things. You get fined or referred to a rehab clinic in Portugal if you are caught with a small amount of drugs on you. By no means are drugs legal to sell. For someone giving out to people about being unaware you don’t seem to have a clue.
@Mick Stealing a loaf of bread, robbing a t-shirt from penneys. That sort of thing. Relatively victimless crimes. A crime where no person, their property or possessions are harmed in any serious way. I know you can argue the shop owner loses out etc. Relatively though, the loss of profit from the sale of a loaf of bread does not impact in the same way as armed robbery. One is petty the other is serious.
@Peter Smyth: The vast majority of those offenders will never go to prison. Shops don’t bother reporting it, the guards give them a warning, the state doesn’t prosecute it because it would cost ten times more to prosecute than the cost of the t-shirt, a judge will give the probation act etc. There is no space in our prisons to lock up even a fraction of small time shoplifters. The ones that are sent down for it usually have a string of previous offences or aggravating behaviour or something.
@Peter Smyth: So You consider theft as petty crime. Do you know your petty crime (shoplifting) costs companies Half a Billion Euro a year. Have you ever heard of the NYPD’s Broken Windows? When they introduced it Crime Rates across the spectrum dropped dramatically.
@Clever Jake: Under Federal Law it is illegal. And only legalised in some States. But I see you ignored Opiates, Cocaine and its derivatives, Methamphetamines, LSD etc.
@Clever Jake: I have asked you several times to point out where the sale of Opiates, Cocaine and its derivatives, Methamphetamines, LSD etc are openly and legally for sale on the open market. And as of yet you have not answered the question. Would your refusal to answer be that the answer is nowhere? So you can put up all the video links you like, it changes nothing. Narcotics are currently illegal across the globe. And here in Ireland are unlikely to ever be legalised in any of our lifetimes. So your point is moot.
Possession, Cultivation, Sale or Supply of Illegal Narcotics is a criminal offence under Irish Law. That is the reality.
@Mick Jordan….is it true that the prisoners have to be handled with kid gloves as in the control and restraint techniques? What is the protocol for defending yourself against a prisoner coming at you with a shard of glass or a snooker que for example? I believe you guys were promised stab proof vests, pepper spray etc but these seem to be on the back burner for now. Surely the education should be given to the people at the top of the chain in regards to the management of the prisoners by the people who deal with them on a daily basis. The person who wrote this article would most likely cross the street if he spotted many of the individuals you encounter on a daily basis – the ones he claims he wishes to help.
@Clever Jake: “Decrimilisation is basically legalisation, albeit not legal to sell but a blind eye approach is in place and most people do not attend a rehab clinic in Portugal.”
Well then it’s not legalisation then. So maybe stop watching Netflix docs and actually go read up on what you are trying to argue about.
Right at the start of this article the author makes the following claim “It is common knowledge that deaths from suicide and drug overdoses are common in Irish prisons”. I don’t know where he gets his common knowledge from but this is simply not true. From 2005 to 2014 there were 15 deaths by suicide in irish prisons, an average of 1.5 per year. In normal society the people most likely to commit suicide are young males. Add to that addiction issues and mental health issues and you have your standard prison population. The only reason the suicide rates are so low is because of the actions and interventions of prison staff. These officers are working on reduced pay with dangerously reduced staffing levels with little to no support from an employer who considers them to be an unfortunate expense.
A Phd student in Law. Wow, he definitely knows what he’s talking about so. He can operate his alternative to prisons from his Ivory Tower and see how that works out for him. We should definitely listen to this guy….
Stopped reading once he referred to prisoners as a repressed group of people. What a load of toss
Complete ballocks. Prison doesn’t work because it’s a holiday home. Make it an unpalatable place so a prisoner will never want to return.
Why didn’t Stephen tell us about all the things the prisoners do have access to .. article is very one sided ..
Sewing hats for the sick children in hospital???Why didn’t they want to help them when they were out in the free world.DOUGHNUTS?This is a joke to those law abiding citizens who work hard to put their children through school,pay their rent and mortgages and work hard to put food on the table of their lived ones.How much are these prisoners costing the taxpayer?The revolving door exists because they have it too easy in prison and are too lazy to pay their way in society.Suicide sadly is in the ‘real world’ as well but linking it with prison?I’m not fully convinced its the cause really.
Penal reform will not win public support if would-be reformers are going down the path of identity politics now.
“prisoners are not a foreign abstraction: they are people too with hopes and dreams just like you. They could be any one of us if we were to just find ourselves on the wrong side of the law.”
This reduction of humanity to some supposed common denominator is nonsense. There are paedophiles in our jails whose hopes and dreams involve abusing more children. Jailed IS jihadists across Europe dream of a harem of 10 year old Yezidi sex slaves and crucifying unbelievers. Yes, they are people too, but our differences matter as much as our similarities.
“treating them like they don’t have any social value.”
They are not being treated as if they have no social value. They are being treated as if the damage they have caused to society currently outweighs the value they have contributed to it. In many cases, that is a pretty fair assessment. And if anyone wants to fulfill their potential value to society then acknowledging that your actions to date haven’t done so would be a fairly unavoidable place to start.
“oppressed and forgotten its occupants are.”
This oppression word is being bandied about far too carelessly. Almost everyone in society engages in some combination of oppressing and being oppressed. It’s a spectrum, not an either or.
Graham Dwyer is a man who has engaged in far more oppression in his life than that which is currently visited on him by the prison system. The same is true for many, many serially violent inmates.
Ironically, lumping all prisoners in together as “oppressed” is just as much a failure to recognize their common humanity as it treating them all as irredeemably evil.
Prison reform that reduced recidivism would be good. But public support for it will never extend to all prisoners and nor should it.
Wow. That was the biggest pile of horse shight I’ve read all year……good work!
Colum. We both know although how well meaning he thinks his is study is he and others like him have no real idea of what Prison is.
Bring back hard labour, make them pay by working for society ffs, too many pc bleeding heart bedwetters looking out for the ‘rights’ of criminals.
We live in a country where if a system is outdated and no longer relevant we do nothing to improve, change or adapt that system whatsoever. Old peoples homes, schools, education, prison, courts, renting amongst many others; they’re all well overdue a complete systemic overhaul.
Honestly, this reads like you sh*8 on your heels as you gasped for air to move forward. Undoubtedly, how prisoners are treated is an important issue. Just not in an “almost, kinda, no doughnuts, maybe” human rights type of way.
You’re a kid who is a “PhD student in Law” lad. Do the rounds. Talk to the defendants. Talk to the solicitors. I’d be interested. Most would.
Did the guard say “donuts” in an American accent? Doughnuts.
They need to be put in green overalls (like in a America) and mad clean the streets and dig holes anything to make them see Prison is NOT an a Hotel.
Then we may not get the same People in there so often, also no TV no x box no fun punishment and make them not want to ho nack to Prison and while i’
And while i’m at it the tax payer shouldn’t pay for there meals their Families or wives. girlfriends as long as its not the tax payer
@von: You say our prison system should be more “like America” and then people would be less likely to go back, yet America has the highest rate of imprisonent in the world as well as a recidivism rate of over sixty percent. It also has a crime rate much higher than Ireland’s.
We should increase sentence for recidivists. A mandatory 50% increase in time served combined with minimum tarrif should sort it out
@Rockclimber55: I think you’re over-estimating the capacities of prisoners with impulse control problems, mental health problems and drug addictions.
its always about criminal’s rights and their wellbeing. say that to all their victims they attacked or raped
When prisoners are locked away it is to protect society in general from threat and danger. Strange that the PhD student does not explore why there is a need for prisons. People are separated from the public for a reason. Maybe he should explore the concept of criminal inclination, after all deprivation of freedom is meant to be some form of deterrent. What makes a criminal a criminal? Is it nature or an absence of nurture?
When you tackle inequality and promote education while putting an emphasis on rehabilitation crime drops! When you pioneer a greed system with inequality at every turn crime rises! There will always be bad people that cause crime and need to be locked away for the good of society, but equally there are many that are part put there by society! I’ve worked on youth diversion projects and investment in this type of area genuinely makes a difference – not to everyone but to some it does!! This hardcore right wing attitude is exactly what prevails in America where inequality is at its highest – there are more people in prison there solely for gun related crimes than for all crimes in the wider EU with 100 million more inhabitants ! Scandinavia has less crime and more equality! It is not Rocket science!
David. Everyone likes to talk about the Scandinavian model. That’s great in a Scandinavian Society. But comparing say Irish society to Scandinavia is like trying to compare and Apple and an Orange. Both are spherical, both grow on trees and both are fruit. And that is as close as it gets. Our society and that of Scandinavia are the same as those fruit. So comparing them in depth is an exercise in utter futility.
If prisoners were brought into schools in deprived areas where most prisoners come from and told there is no glamour in being a prisoner it might stop a few from going down that road. The revolving door has to stop.
I used to think that if you do something bad or wrong knowingly you were punished cut it. Then over the years I met some who did, were sent to prison and laughed and joked about how cushy it was there. When they committed another crime they didn’t fear prison again. Now I would really like to know where the punishment or the rehab was after that. Another thing too even though they day most crimes are probably commuted by the lower classes there are quite a few very very wealthy criminal families out here whose children have gotten the best of everything, education, clothes and so on through crime yet they will follow in the “family business” knowing its totally wrong and there are people in the ” lower class” who respect and are law abiding citizens.
People in prison are not elsewhere committing crimes.
If life is so good in prison or on social welfare why don’t you all just in the wagon.
What needed is more investment in the poorest sections of our society.
@Stephen Maher: Agree
Prison a terrible place? Stay away from it then.
It’s fair to say that strict incarceration and the penal system does not work. There are studies conducted in the US which show that strict incarceration actually increases the chances of recidivism, or reoffending and returning to prison. Why are governments not attempting to adopt the model which Norway have in place, Scandinavian models of health and wealth redistribution are seen as beacons of light but no politician wants to discuss the idea of rehabilitation as it is a political hot potato. The Norwegians adopted a model of restorative justice and this has led to one of the lowest incarceration rates in the world and one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world (20% compared to almost 80% in the US). I understand that culture and wealth have its roles to play in these rates but it’s obvious that one system is much more effective than the other. It amazes me that most of the world blindly accepts the out dates systems we have in place simply because they have been in place for centuries. It’s the 21st century and it’s about time we adapted and improved instead of simply maintaining the status quo.
Actually Kieran the Japanese have the lowest recidivism rate of 2% yet have been acknowledged as having the strictest penal system. So one could really argue that the harsher the Regime the less likely of a return to Prison.
Actually Mick I said that Norway has “one of the lowest” incarceration rates. But he reason I mentioned culture is because culture has a role to play as to what may work In certain countries. If it’s working in Japan that’s great and I applaud them for it. But it’s clearly not working in western culture and yet we persist. The western cultures who implemented policies to focus on rehabilitation more so than simple incarceration and punishment have had success – Norway being a very good example. So I’m not arguing “that the harsher the regime the less likely of a return to prison”. I am arguing that the current system in place is failing in our country and others and it seems that there are alternatives which have proven results which could be implemented over time.
And as I said below having a Scandinavian style penal system goes hand in hand with a Scandinavian style society. Which as we don’t have the latter it is pointless talking about the former.
We are much closer to a Scandinavian society, culture and even shared heritage than we are the Japanese, which you mentioned! And basically what you’re saying is that no society or culture has never learned from another and adapted for the better?? Not even going to start listing!!
prisons do work, the statement that they don’t work is just the commie/left/green speak for “let the working class” suffer
To me, the point of imprisonment is to protect the public.
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