Would you like to get away from the stresses of the daily life for the next five to ten years? Then Norway’s new Halden prison/spa is for you!
Halden Prison holds 252 inmates, making it the second-largest prison in Norway. The prison cost 1.5 billion kroner ($252 million) and took 10 years to complete. It's a gorgeous, ultra-modern structure right near the Swedish border, comprised of cells that are arranged in units of 10 to 12, much like a college dorm. Except these cells are actually better than most dorms, since every cell comes with a private bathroom and a flat-screen TV, as well as a view, the windows don't even have bars in them.
But what about facilities, you might ask? My college dorm had a foosball table, and a vending machine! This prison can't match that, right? Wrong. Halden has a gym, training room, chapel, library, family visiting unit, football field, a school, and most unbelievably a sound studio. But it's the design that's most strikingly different from American prisons. Halden doesn't shy away from bright, cheerful colors, and actually spent about $1 million to hire a graffiti artist named Dolk (sort of their version of Banksy) to paint beautiful murals all around the grounds.
It's all aimed at rehabilitating, rather than necessarily punishing, criminals, which is a noble exercise and all that, but it's sort of personally embarrassing to me to know that a prison is more luxurious than some of my past apartments.
Image Credit: Trond Isaksen/Statsbygg
Source: Halden Prison
12 comments:
no esta mal . pero recuerda q lo mas importante es que te quitan la libertad, no los lujos
I really hate this prison! The elders in Norway don't get anything when they need it. They get a shower once in a week and have to go to bed at 8. o'clock in the evening beacause the gouverment can't afford more nurses. Why the hell do they spend so much money on the prisoners? I upsets me and a lot of other a lot! I know that the day I run out of money or get old, I'll fake some money or something and have to go to prison so I can live a luxurious life!
They live better then me!
They built this prison for the social shopping "refugees" that go around raping, pillaging and generally ignoring all civilized values in favor of their own middle-aged sorry excuse for a culture. Now they can do so knowing that they will have a nice life at the tax payers' expense regardless.
a prison is a prison. you are still in noway in posession of free will. sure its nice and all but does that realy matter? you cant leave the grounds for 5+ years....
and as a side note don't you want the inmates to come out of prison with hope that they can make a living legaly. instead of coming out knowing that it is only a matter of time before they are back inside, and with the will to kill people to avoid that?
better to have them out with all the odds stacked in favor of them becoming useful citizens :)
The schools are decaying, hospitals are in awful conditions, roads are dangerous, the police is a joke, but it is good too know that our politicians have their priorities in order.
The whole Scandinavian welfare model is a complete and utter disgrace.
"The Government Pension Fund Global’s market value was 2,763 billion kroner at the end of the first quarter of 2010."
http://www.nbim.no/en/Investments/Market-Value/
2,763 billion kroner = 447 billion U.S. dollar or 303 billion British pounds. I think Norway will survive spending $252 million on a prison.
Do you see the walls? They are not ment to keep the inmates inside. They are ment to keep students, the elderly and the homeless outside...
It saddens me to see so many people opposed to the rehabilitation of criminals. I really commend the work this prison and the Norwegian government is doing to prepare prisoners to become valuable citizens. In american the chances a prisoner will be back in jail in the next 2 years is 50-60%, which goes to show that prisons that look like, well, prisons and no quality rehabilitaion keep the prisoners feeling like criminals and not proper, valuable members of our society.
Just because they're criminals doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated in a humane way. Maybe if American prisons treated their inmates better their recommit rates wouldn't be at 60% (look at Norways hovering just below 20%, which isn't perfect but it's a lot better, and I believe that this has a lot to do with it).
I think this is a great step in the right direction and I hope one day the rest of the world will follow.
I commend any government who believes that the rehabilitation of criminals is possible and is willing to spend the money in doing so. I DO consider this type of facility to be rehabilitative since the prisoners are not treated like animals or inferior beings because they made mistakes / committed crimes (like they do in the US). They are given an opportunity to learn new talents, educate themselves, and become a functioning member of the facility.
I believe they have a MUCH greater chance of getting out of prison and becoming law abiding valuable members of society who are not reliant on crime to survive. This is in stark contrast to the US system where the criminal class was created years ago by the government when they eliminated numerous welfare programs and offered no assistance to replace the resources those people had become reliant on. We now have this entire culture in America who thinks it is cool to be a "thug", be in gangs, and "do what they have to do to survive". And how does our system respond? Treat them like animals, lock them up in sub par facilities with the bare minimum for survival and offer NO incentives whatsoever to get out of prison and become law abiding citizens. Felons can't get jobs! Felons are looked at in America as despicable - they have lost any opportunity to live a normal life the moment they were convicted. They will most likely NEVER get anywhere except back to jail, into a dead end minimum wage job which does NOT support one person let alone a family, or DEAD.
I applaud Norway for realizing that the criminal class needs HELP while they are being punished. I wish America would take a good hard look at the criminal class in this country and realize it is ALL financially motivated. That criminals begin to commit crimes because of necessity. Land of opportunity?? Only for those born into the middle to upper classes, perhaps some immigrants, and a VERY VERY few lucky ones who struggle each and every day from the time they are small children until they are college aged and happen to do well enough to get enough grants to go to college and THEN get lucky enough when they graduate to get a decent job that will actually pay a living wage. Oh and don't screw up even once because you will NEVER have an opportunity to redeem yourself in society's eyes.
The American system is severely broken and the worse this economy gets, the worse off these criminals are. It is a sad sad state.
please please get in touch with the canadian gov't. they are in the process of building new prisons."the intelligence of a society can be measured by the way it treats its criminals " TAKE NOTICE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's a NEW prison! When you build something new it often looks nice - because it's new. Why build something crappy?? And why put criminals in old, depressing prisons for 5 years, so they all go crazy and loose all hope to once start a new and better life...
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