One hears a good deal of talk these days about Norwegian-style prison reformation, of changing the culture of American corrections; but what exactly is the “Norway model”, and is it possible here in the United States?
It’s worth acknowledging that, where criminal justice is concerned, there doesn’t exist a consensus even in Norway. The issue is more complex than might be imagined by those promoting change to our system, which from the beginning has been based largely on retribution and fear.
Central to the Norwegian philosophy of criminal justice is the idea that society has an obligation to return to the fold those individuals who violated its laws, to help the offender realize the error of his ways and to instill in him a desire to do right by himself and by others. This concept stems in part from the belief that, while the individual himself is responsible for his actions, the community that produced him must to a degree also be accountable. It is a mindset that cannot be divorced from the traditional cultural values from which it sprang. It necessarily implies a sense of belonging, or at least the understanding that there exists something outside the individual worth belonging to.
Other principles underlying the Norway model, as it is generally perceived, are: imprisonment itself is punishment enough; the inmate ought to be treated like a neighbor, because someday he just might be (one easily imagines here the cackling of a cynical American prison administrator, that notorious warehouser of human souls); far from visiting his depredations upon the inmate, the guard is there to counsel and edify the prisoner in what ways he can; the carceral environment should be one that will cause the inmate to feel as closely connected as possible to family, friends, and society in general.
Norwegians have not always approached penology in this fashion, their current model being just a few decades in the making. Something else that almost inevitably gets lost in the discussion is that profound changes to Norway’s culture will almost certainly affect Norwegian views toward criminal justice. How long before those traditional mores, rather than being a unifying and grounding force, end up clashing with those values and traditions brought to the country by immigrants from all over the world? It’s not hard to imagine, for those who are aware of America’s own history of racial difficulties (within and without the context of criminal justice), how the increasing Balkanization of Norway might pose challenges to its penological system. 50 years ago Norway was a homogeneous nation. Today roughly one out of six of its inhabitants is a migrant.
Here in Washington, prison officials have spoken of “changing the culture” of the correctional paradigm for at least a decade now. Many of them have done so fatuously, touting the idea much as a preacher might speak of salvation on Sunday even as he diddles the children and kicks the dog during the week. To the vast majority of prisoners it’s simply lipstick on the pig. Amend and various organizations have lobbied legislators and policymakers for some time now to fundamentally change the ways they perceive criminal justice, and prison bureaucrats have not been slow to seize the public relations opportunities–to say nothing of the free Norwegian vacations–that have become available because of this issue. But for those of us inside the wire, it’s largely been business as usual.
Recently at the “close custody” part of the Clallam Bay Corrections Center, where job and programming opportunities are few and far between for inmates, who generally spend 18-20 hours of every day in their cells, administrators opened a “game room”. It is a place where prisoners may gather to talk, draw, or play video games. Of course it isn’t a bad thing, but that Washington officials consider it a big step forward is a significant part of the problem–they remain grounded in the Stone Age of corrections, and each bit of progress they make is hardly worthy of the attention they give it.
At every facility where I did time in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.)–a system not known for its enlightened approach–there were recreation areas available all day, where inmates could pass the time doing leatherwork, pottery, exercising, playing musical instruments, shooting pool, or simply hanging out and watching television. These activities have been available for decades in the federal system, and we’re seeing a small game room–accessible just once a week for a couple of hours–being rolled out with much fanfare. They call it “The Washington Way”, and it’s become something of a cult among glassy-eyed D.O.C. officials, many of whom mean well and perhaps wish to earn points from the Amend crowd. But they are up against a deep history of ignorance, spite, and fear, and it’s an open question whether they’ll have much success effectuating meaningful change, especially when a significant majority of their colleagues consider the enterprise to be quite silly.
Belying the initiative is the D.O.C.’s practice of hiring individuals with the dispositions of carnies and gas station attendants, sullen, stunted, sometimes drug-addled creatures whose eyes often shine with a malice unique to those who get their kicks poking and prodding and disrupting the lives of others. This of course impedes any effort toward genuine reformation, because these are the men and women with whom the prisoner must interact every day, the ones who wield a considerable degree of control over the structure and quality of the inmate’s time. Certain of these new hires are 18-year-old kids who just yesterday traded their graduation gowns and Wal-Mart vests for ill-fitting D.O.C. uniforms. One can only laugh sardonically when contrasting this with the schooling and training undergone by guards in Norway.
The generally poor quality of prison staff is very much related to the demographic challenges that must be considered by those pushing the Norway model in American prisons. The problems run deep. The sheer numbers alone create hurdles. The state of Washington has approximately eight million people, Norway around six. I do not know what Norway’s prison population is, but judging from the incarceration rates here in the States it is a safe bet that Washington’s population of 13,000 prisoners far exceeds Norway’s. In and of itself this creates difficulties, ones found just about everywhere in America’s assembly-line system of justice–there’s almost no human touch, no treatment or programming (how prison bureaucrats love this word, “programming”!) that is tailored to the individual; and why would there be when from start to finish it is understood that the inmate is but a product on a conveyor belt? The message is sent early on, when the prisoner goes to court and receives an extraordinary sentence for something that in Norway might not even land him in prison at all. (Whatever offense is committed, sentences in Norway do not exceed 21 years, although the Breivik case will perhaps end up being an exception. Contrast this with the fact that, in three decades of doing time, I cannot count the number of people I’ve met whose sentences far exceed 21 years, even though they’ve not killed a soul. One fellow here in Washington received over 100 years for “gun enhancements”, extra time given for the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime.) The system is saying “fuck you” to the individual, and naturally prison staff adopt the same mindset because to do otherwise would be to buck a well-established tradition of corrections as vengeance and profit.
There is much in this ugly little word, “profit”–a world of cheap products sold at exorbitant prices to desperate men and women, expensive phone calls, emails that cost and, of course, a vast pool of constitutionally permissible slave labor. (Prison officials sing odes to inmate-family communication, claiming it’s central to their mission, and it is true that they facilitate it to an extent–so long as it generates profit in the form of contractual kickbacks from companies such as Securus, which dot the American landscape like blight in a field of potatoes). These considerations do not exist in Norway. Here there is the expectation that the prisoner will be seen as a number, a cog in a very lucrative machine.
Any objective analysis of the situation must consider population not just quantitatively but qualitatively, which returns one to the difficult subject of race. We might imagine the world as we would like it to be, but it is unhelpful to make plans based on quixotic fancies when humans continue to interact with one another based on instincts that have minds of their own. The Washington D.O.C. hires and imprisons individuals of just about every conceivable color and national origin, and many of them have sensibilities that keep them from discarding race as a factor when dealing with others. Quite apart from the prisoner’s criminal history, many guards are incapable of viewing as “neighbors” inmates who may look, speak, and behave in ways that they neither care for nor understand. Once again it is worth emphasizing that the society on whose correctional system we would model our own is largely homogeneous and has fewer people in it by far. The problem grows more acute in those states with massive prison populations. For instance, according to the Department of Justice, in 2020 California and Texas had prison populations of 101,000 and 133,000, respectively. Florida’s was 80,000. (As an aside, in 1925 there were just 92,000 people behind bars in the entire country, including all jails and state and federal prisons. As recently as 1970 there were only 200,000 people living in cages, a figure surpassed today by just two of the states mentioned above).
It is into this maelstrom of ignorance, greed, fear, and vengeance that well-meaning individuals and groups are throwing various ideas that may well be doomed if they’re not coupled with the policies necessary to see them carried out.
The quarter-measures we’ve seen here in Washington have served to breed resentment among guard and prisoner alike. Administrators now train custodial staff to employ “de-escalation” techniques when dealing with prisoners, which many guards have taken to mean saying “please”, “thank you”, and “have a nice day” in sarcastic tones often employed by passive-aggressive schoolgirls. It’s all become something of a joke, and part of the attitude results from feelings of impotence because guards no longer have carte blanche to arbitrarily toss an inmate into solitary confinement. (The practice continues, to be sure, but it isn’t as common as it once was–this is an area where Washington has made strides, thanks in part to the advocacy of the Vera Institute). Where once they might have handcuffed a prisoner and taken him to the hole on a whim, guards are now being asked to abide a good deal of impudence from recalcitrant inmates. The resentment manifests itself in myriad petty ways that often affect all prisoners, not just the one or two whose behavior triggered the reaction. (A recent example would be the decision by a guard in the control booth here on my unit to keep everyone locked down because of one inmate’s refusal to follow a directive).
From the perspective of the prisoner, it is difficult to not be cynical. Until my transfer to the Clallam Bay Corrections Center last summer, I’d spent the previous 11 years at the Washington State Penitentiary, where the only changes I saw were a few poorly-tended Japanese Maples and a gaudy sports-themed mural painted on the gymnasium wall. A decade of free vacations to Norway, courtesy of Amend, and all that these progressive bureaucrats have managed to bring back with them are poorly understood communication skills and the revolutionary notion that stark concrete environments are rather depressing.
Even with the debates Norwegians continue to have among themselves, concerning funding and the broader moral implications of their views on corrections, it is generally true that the average prisoner in Norway is far less likely to be adversely affected by his prison experience than is his American counterpart. But the reasons for this, all the little details and differences, are not important because the principles on which the “Norway model” rests are fundamentally humanistic. Rather than look to Norway or anywhere else, American lawmakers would do well to simply look within and ask themselves the necessary tough questions regarding just what it is they mean to accomplish by warehousing human beings in living tombs.
While in solitary recently, “the hole” as we say, I asked a guard for toilet paper. I was told that it was distributed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I said I understood as much, but that I had run out and I needed some right now. He told me condescendingly that if he gave me some he would have to give some to everyone, as though we were discussing ice cream or vaginas rather than a basic hygiene product. I ended up having to rip up my shirt. This is the Washington Way.
The greatest obstacle to reformation in American prisons is that these places are full of half-literate, criminally-minded thugs with a benighted view of the world around them–and those are just the guards. Most of us who’ve done a lot of time have seen little to suggest that this will ever change. At best we might expect to see a brighter shade of lipstick on the pig.
“‘Can there be redemption if there is eternal justice? Alas, the stone it was cannot be moved. All punishments must be eternal too.’ Thus preached Madness.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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