Returning to Prison

I should be writing my 12 page 1.5 spaced paper that is due Friday about how Nestle kills babies.
But instead I am going to write about my second visit to a Danish prison, with the same class that I went with before. Once again, this was one of my favorite Danish experiences of the semester. It's really just so fascinating to see how completely different it was than in the US.

The last prison I went to was shocking because it was an open prison and we have absolutely nothing like that in the US for drug users and robbers. However, this closed prison, Vridsløselille, was almost as surprising in its own way. With the open prison, I did have some idea of what to expect. I had seen photos in my class lectures and had heard from my teacher about how different it was from an American prison. But in regards to the closed prisons, she had always told us that it would be a lot more like what we pictured when we pictured a prison.

Well, at least this prison had gates that lock. But other than that, it still was not very close to what I imagined to see in a closed prison. The prisoners still dressed in normal clothes. They still wandered around within their unlocked wards at will. The knives in the kitchen (although this time attached to the wall), the tanning bed, the soccer fields, the friendly conversations between guards and prisoners that I had seen in the open prison still existed in the closed prison. And these are not prisoners in for minor drug offenses or pickpocketing. The prison we visited had murderers, serious drug offenders, gang members, the worst criminals in Denmark. Prisoners can go to the gym, school, work (well, work's a requirement), and even the prison grocery store! They aren't allowed to leave the grounds obviously, or to go outside their ward past a certain time, and they are locked into their rooms at night, but as far as prisons go, this didn't seem all that uncomfortable. There were even pool tables and ping pong tables on all the wards!

They also place a large emphasis on education in the prison, which seems like a good thing to me. Instead of going to work, prisoners can go to school to receive an education in the prison. They will still be paid as if they were going to work! While I know Americans would have a problem paying prisoners to go to school and not even to work, it probably helps with giving prisoners something to do when they get out of prison other than go right back to crime.

At the end of our visit, we talked to a prisoner for a little while, which was a little disconcerting. He committed a double homicide of two Finnish police men, which is like... a really horrible crime. But he seemed extremely nice and seemed genuinely sorry, which was the disconcerting part. I had to keep reminding myself that he was a serious criminal and that in all likelihood isn't as friendly as he seems. Or maybe he is, who knows?

Also, when we were leaving, I saw a cool sculpture at the train station:

Going to Danish Prison

Well, you may have read about my run-in with the Danish police for not have lights on my bike at night, so it was really only a matter of time before I ended up at a prison. Kidding. Kind of. I did go to a prison, it just wasn't because of any laws I broke, rather it was just for my Criminal Justice in Scandinavia class.
The Scandinavians take a very very different approach to criminal punishment than the Americans and this prison was proof of that. While Americans basically just seem to shove as many people into prison for as long as they can, without really caring about giving them any sort of humane living conditions, the Danes are much more lenient with their prison sentences. A murderer may receive a ten year sentence. In fact, few people receive more than five years. And for most prisoners, the default place to serve out a term is an open prison, meaning there is an open gate, and the prisoners are not in any locked facilities during the day. At night they are locked into rooms, but that is all. The only thing that stops the prisoners from walking out is there willpower. And somehow it seems to work. After all the conditions in the prison are extremely humane. The prison is neat, clean, and comfortable. There is green grass all around. The prisoners have access to TVs, when their children come and visit, there are toys and playgrounds. There is a gym, a kitchen where prisoners cook for themselves, with full access to very large cooking knives. Basically, the guard who showed us around, an unarmed female in an all-men's prison, said that the philosophy is that if it doesn't make them more criminal, there is no reason they should not have access to it. Indeed, perhaps the most mind-blowing thing to me was the tanning bed. Prisoners had access to a tanning bed! It's not free for them to use, they pay for it out of their wages, but still! Wow!
And the thing about all this is that it seems to have the desired effects. The prisoners, as a result of being treated like human beings, act like human beings. They were friendly, polite, even joking with the guards. And the recidivism rate in Denmark is significantly lower than the US, which I think says a lot.
A lot of Americans would have a problem with this, I think. I heard one fellow student say, they're criminals! They shouldn't be treated nicely. But I really do think people will act how you treat them, in a lot of cases, and the results of Danish prisons speak for themselves.
All in all, this was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had since being in Denmark. It is certainly my favorite field-trip I have ever been on and I had moments of genuine shock (seeing the knives and the tanning bed in the prison, to name a few!)