Better Incarceration

Norway recently completed a 252 million dollar prison, Halden Fengsel, arguably the most humane prison in the world.

It has no barbed wire or guns. Cells are grouped and share communal kitchens with steel countertops, sofas and coffee tables.

Inmates receive an education, including cooking classes and music lessons.

The architecture is designed to soothe feelings of isolation and ostracization, instead of merely confine and prevent escape.

The Guards consider prisoners to be their "pupils" and aspire to give prisoners "a meaningful life within these walls." To this end, guards share meals and play sports with prisoners. Furthermore, there is not a strict division of the sexes, some guards are women.

All of these details, explains one of the prison's architects, Hans Henrik Hoilund, is "to make the prison look as much like the outside world as possible" and to foster "a sense of family."

"When they arrive, many of them are in bad shape," says Are Hoidal, the prison's governor.

Noting that Halden houses drug dealers, murderers and rapists, among others, Governor Hoidal explains that the staff's primary purpose is rehabilitative not retributive; "We want to build them up, give them confidence through education and work and have them leave as better people."

Could such a prison really prevent crime? Consider that Norway incarcerates only 69 Norwegians per 100,000 while the United States incarcerates 752 Americans per 100,000.