Breaking the cycle (excerpt)

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The deputy warden from the world's most humane maximum security prison, Halden Prison in Norway, goes on a mission to change one ...

The deputy warden from the world's most humane maximum security prison, Halden Prison in Norway, goes on a mission to change one of the most notorious prisons in the world – Attica Correctional Facility in New York State. How will the Nordic ideas about dialogue and humanity be received by staff and inmates in Attica?

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What happens to a new inmate when he enters Halden prison? See our POV video about the inmate induction process here:

James Conway from Attica visited four Nordic prisons in 2012. Watch his visit here:

ATTN: did a version of this as well:

Nordicblue on October 3rd, 2017 at 15:51 UTC »

Hello, myself and /u/starkjo produced and directed this - nice to see this important topic being discussed again.

just as background: At any given time Halden has roughly 30-40 different nationalities amongst inmates, and the inmates are there for serious and violent crimes. This is a maximum security prison in Norway.

In our opinion the Nordic prison system and the progress is more about treating people with respect and igniting a spark of hope for their future.

I highly recommend the extra footage that is linked to this documentary:

This is how you enter Halden prison as a new inmate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPVPKEdCAwo

And this is extra footage where Jan Strømnes explain the Nordic prison system to the staff inside Attica (full lecture, 60min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB037gVIpJc&t=10s

EDIT: The original clip w/o ads and overlays is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haHeDgbfLtw

If you have any questions, shoot!

xcrea on October 3rd, 2017 at 13:02 UTC »

For those interested, read up on the Bastøy prison in Norway as well. It's a minimum-security "prison" where you basically live on an island on a farm, doing labor to run the farm for the last bit of your sentence. The idea is that the prisoners should be able to run the whole community by themselves.

"The prison is organized as a small local community (island community) with about 80 buildings, roads, beach zones, cultural landscape, football field, agricultural land and forest. In addition to the prison functions, there is a shop, library, information office, health services, church, school, NAV (government social services), dock, ferry service (with its own shipping agency) and a lighthouse with facilities to let for smaller meetings and seminars."

SudaneseWarlord on October 3rd, 2017 at 12:20 UTC »

I think the US prison system is broken, and that the Norwegians are on to something.

It boils down to what type of people you want coming out of prison. Do you want hardened criminals or working citizens?