May 24, 2012 -- Updated 1420 GMT (2220 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Bastoy prison is on an island in southern Norway
- There are no fences or armed guards; inmates hold the keys to locks
- Inmates have access to beaches, horses and a sauna
- Norway's unique justice system has been in the spotlight since a terror attack last summer
On a recent Thursday,
however, at this summer-camp-like island prison in southern Norway,
where convicts hold keys to their rooms and there are no armed guards or
fences, Vala used those same enormous hands to help bring life into the
world.
The 42-year-old murderer
stood watch while an oversize cow gave birth to a wobbly, long-legged,
brown-and-white calf. He cried as the baby was born, he said, and wiped
slime off of the newborn's face so she could gulp her first breath.
Afterward, Vala called his own mother to share the good news.
"I told my family that I'm going to be a dad," he said, beaming with pride.
This is exactly the type
of dramatic turnabout -- enraged killer to gentle-giant midwife -- that
corrections officials in Norway hope to create with this controversial,
one-of-a-kind prison, arguably the cushiest the world has to offer.
Founded in 1982, Bastoy
Prison is located on a lush, 1-square-mile island of pine trees and
rocky coasts, with views of the ocean that are postcard-worthy. It feels
more like a resort than jail, and prisoners here enjoy freedoms that
would be unthinkable elsewhere.
It's the holiday version of Alcatraz.
There's a beach where
prisoners sunbathe in the summer, plenty of good fishing spots, a sauna
and tennis courts. Horses roam gravel roads. Some of the 115 prisoners
here -- all men and serving time for murder, rape and trafficking
heroin, among other crimes -- stay in wooden cottages, painted cheery
red. They come and go as they please. Others live in "The Big House," a
white mansion on a hill that, on the inside, looks like a college dorm. A
chicken lives in the basement, a guard said, and provides eggs for the
inmates.
When you ask the cook
what's for dinner, he offers up menu choices like "fish balls with white
sauce, with shrimps" and "everything from chicken con carne to salmon."
Plenty of people would pay to vacation in a place like this.
On first read, all of
that probably sounds infuriating. Shouldn't these men be punished? Why
do they get access to all these comforts with others live in poverty?
But if the goal of prison is to change people, Bastoy seems to work.
"If we have created a
holiday camp for criminals here, so what?" asked Arne Kvernvik Nilsen,
the prison's governor and a former minister and psychologist. He added,
"We should reduce the risk of reoffending, because if we don't, what's
the point of punishment, except for leaning toward the primitive side of
humanity?"
Take a quick look at the
numbers: Only 20% of prisoners who come through Norway's prisons
reoffend within two years of being released, according to a 2010 report
commissioned by the governments of several Nordic countries.
At Bastoy, that figure is even lower, officials say: about 16%.
Compare that with the
three-year re-offense rate for state prisons in the U.S.: 43%, according
to a 2011 report from the Pew Center on the States, a nonpartisan
research group. Older government reports put that number even higher, at
more than five in 10.
Ryan King, a research
director at Pew and an author of the group's recent report, said it's
difficult to compare recidivism rates from state to state, much less
from country to country. Instead of focusing on the numbers, he said,
one should focus on what a country is or isn't doing to tackle
re-offense rates.
Still, Bastoy remains
controversial even in academia. Irvin Waller, president of the
International Organization for Victim Assistance and a professor at the
University of Ottawa, said in an e-mail that the relative niceness of a
prison has no effect on whether people commit crimes when they're
released. "The key is not that much what happens in prison but what
happens when the men are released," he said.
Jan Petter Vala is serving part of a 10-year murder sentence on a posh island in southern Norway.
But officials here
maintain that their methods do make a difference, and they follow it up
with post-release programs. The aim of Bastoy is not to punish or seek
revenge, Nilsen said. The only punishment is to take away the prisoner's
right to be a free member of society.
Even at a time when Anders Behring Breivik is on trial in Norway for killing 77 people in a terror attack last year
-- and the remote possibility he could end up at Bastoy or a similar
prison some day -- Nilsen and others stand up for this brand of justice.
Life at Bastoy
To understand Norway's
pleasant-prison philosophy, first you have to get a sense of how life at
a cushy, low-security prison like Bastoy actually plays out.
There are few rules
here. Prisoners can have TVs in their rooms, provided they bring them
from "outside" when they're sentenced. They wear whatever clothes they
want: jeans, T-shirts. One man had a sweater with pink-and-gray
horizontal stripes, but that's as close as it got to the jailbird look.
Even guards aren't dressed in uniform, which makes conducting interviews
tricky. It's impossible to tell an officer from a drug trafficker.
A common opening question: "So, do you live here?"
Everyone at Bastoy has a
job, and prisoners must report to work from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
weekdays. Some people garden; others farm. Some chop down trees and
slice them into firewood (It's hard not to think about the wood chipper
scene in "Fargo" when you see inmates filleting tree trunks with an
enormous circular saw). Others tend to a team of horses, which are used
to cart wood and supplies from one part of the island to another.
Everyone moves about freely during these tasks. Guards are sometimes
present, sometimes not. No one wears shackles or electronic monitoring
bracelets.
The idea is for prison to function like a small, self-sustaining village.
For their work, inmates
are paid. They get a stipend of 59 Norwegian kroner per day, about $10.
They can save that money or spend it on odds and ends in a local shop.
Additionally, they get a monthly stipend of about $125 for their food.
Kitchen workers -- that's another inmate job -- serve Bastoy residents
dinner each day. For breakfast and lunch, inmates use their stipend to
make purchases in the local shop and then cook for themselves at home.
Many live in small houses that have full kitchens. Others have access to
shared cooking space.
The goal, Nilsen said,
is to create an environment where people can build self-esteem and
reform their lives. "They look at themselves in the mirror, and they
think, 'I am s***. I don't care. I am nothing,' " he said. This prison,
he says, gives them a chance to see they have worth, "to discover, 'I'm
not such a bad guy.' "
In locked-down prisons,
inmates are treated "like animals or robots," he said, moving from one
planned station to the next, with no choice in the matter. Here, inmates
are forced to make choices -- to learn how to be better people.
Prisoners, of course, appreciate this approach.
Kjell Amundsen, a
70-year-old who said he is in jail for a white-collar financial crime,
was terrified when he rode the 15-minute ferry from the mainland out to
Bastoy.
On a recent afternoon,
he was sweeping up in a plant nursery while John Lennon's "Imagine"
played on the radio. "I think it's marvelous to be in a prison this
way," he said.
He plans to keep up the
task after his sentence ends. "I'm living in a flat (when I get out),
but I am convinced I should have a little garden," he said.
Bastoy Prison functions like a small village. Everyone has a job, including chopping firewood.
Some prisoners get
schooling in a yellow Bavarian-style building near the center of the
island. On a recent afternoon, three young men were learning to use
computer programs to create 3-D models of cars. All expressed interest
in doing this sort of work after their prison terms end.
Tom Remi Berg, a
22-year-old who said he is in prison for the third time after getting
into a bar fight and beating a man nearly to death, said he is finally
learning his lesson at Bastoy.
He works in the kitchen
and is seeking training to become a chef when he's released. He also
plays in the prison blues band -- Guilty as Hell -- and lives with his
bandmates.
"It's good to have a prison like this," he said. "You can learn to start a new page again."
If escaped, please call
The prisoners are
required to check in several times a day so guards can make sure they're
still on the island. Nothing but 1½ miles of seawater stops them from
leaving; they'd only have to steal one of the prison's boats to cross
it, several inmates said.
An escape would be relatively easy.
Prisoners have tried to
escape in the past. One swam halfway across the channel and became
stranded on a buoy and screamed for rescuers to help, prison officials
said. Another made it across the channel by stealing a boat but was
caught on the other side.
Many, however, don't
want to leave. If they tried and failed, they would be forced to go to a
higher-security prison and could have their sentences extended.
When inmates come to his island jail, Nilsen, the governor, gives them a little talk.
Among the wisdom he
imparts is this: If you should escape and make it across the water to
the free shore, find a phone and call so I know you're OK and "so we
don't have to send the coast guard looking for you."
This kind of trust may
seem shocking or naïve from the outside, but it's the entire basis for
Bastoy's existence. Overnight, only three or four guards (the prison
employs 71 administrative staff, including the guards) stay on the
island with this group of people who have been convicted of serious
crimes. If guards carried weapons (which they don't) it might encourage
inmates to take up arms, too, he said.
Further complicating the
security situation, some inmates, toward the end of their terms, are
allowed to leave the island on a daily ferry to work or attend classes
on the mainland.
They're expected to come back on their own free will.
Some prisoners live in dorm-like rooms; they aren't locked in, and guards are not armed.
Inmates are screened to
make sure they're mentally stable and unlikely to plot an escape before
they come to Bastoy. The vast majority -- 97%, according to Nilsen --
have served part of their sentences at higher-security jails in Norway.
In the four years Nilsen has been heading up the prison, there have been
no "serious" incidents of violence, he said.
By the time they get to Bastoy, inmates view the island as a relief.
'It's still prison'
There's a question inmates here get asked frequently: When your sentence is up, will you want to leave?
The answer, despite the nice conditions, is always an emphatic yes.
"It's still prison,"
said Luke, 23. He didn't want his full name used for fear future
employers would see it. "In your mind, you are locked (up)."
The simple fact of being
taken away from family members is enough to stop Benny, 40, from
wanting to offend again. The refugee from Kosovo said he was convicted
on drug charges after he was found with 13 pounds of heroin. He didn't
want his full name used because he doesn't want to embarrass his family
or jeopardize his chance of finding a job after he's released.
Before coming to Bastoy, he sat in a higher-security prison while one of his children was born.
"It doesn't matter how
long the sentences get. The sentence doesn't matter," Benny said. "When
you take freedom from people, that's what's scary."
There are only 3,600
people in prison in this country, compared with 2.3 million in the
United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Relative
to population, the U.S. has about 10 times as many inmates as Norway.
More than 89% of
Norway's jail sentences are less than a year, officials said. In U.S.
federal prisons, longer sentences are much more common, with fewer than
2% serving a year or less, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Some researchers support Norway's efforts to lighten sentences.
Think of prison like
parenting and it starts to make sense, said Mark A.R. Kleiman, a
professor of public policy at UCLA and author of "When Brute Force
Fails."
"Every parent knows
this. What if you tried to discipline your kid by saying, 'If you don't
clean your room, there's a 10% chance I'll kick you out of the house and
never see you again'?" he said, referencing the fact that many crimes
in the America go unpunished, but the justice system issues harsh
sentences when offenders are caught. Grounding the child immediately, a
softer sentence, would work better, even though the punishment is less
severe.
"We have a criminal justice system (in the United States) that, if it were a parent, we would say it's abusive and neglectful."
Kleiman said victims do
have a right to see offenders punished. But in Norway, a country with
one of the highest standards of living in the world, staying on a
resort-like island with horses might feel like punishment to many
people, he said.
Research also suggests
that programs like Bastoy that train inmates for their transition back
into the free world -- with education, counseling and such -- do help
prisoners adjust.
"There is overwhelming
evidence that rehabilitation works much better than deterrence as a
means of reducing re-offending," said Gerhard Ploeg, a senior adviser at
the Ministry of Justice, which oversees Norway's corrections system.
"It's all in the name of
reintegration," he added. "You won't be suddenly one day standing on
the street with a plastic bag of things you had when you came in."
Mass shooting challenges system
Inmates at Bastoy have plenty of time for activities, including going to the gym and the beach.
Norway's unusual prison
policies have been pushed into the international spotlight after a
bombing and shooting spree last year in which 77 people were killed,
including children.
There's a chance --
although minimal -- that Anders Behring Breivik, who confessed to those
crimes, could end up in Bastoy, one of Norway's "open prisons," Nilsen
said.
It's more likely Breivik
will be sent to one of Norway's many high-security "closed" prisons,
which look much more like their U.S. counterparts.
He also could be set
free some day. Norway has a maximum jail sentence of 21 years, which can
be extended only when an inmate is deemed to be a real and imminent
threat to society. The country expects nearly every prisoner to be
returned to society, which influences its efforts to create jail
environments that reduce re-offense rates.
"The question we must
ask is, 'What kind of person do I want as my neighbor?' " Ploeg said.
"How do we want people to come out of prison? If your neighbor were to
come out of prison, what would you want him to be like?"
Still, it's likely
Breivik's sentence will be extended to the point that he will spend his
life in a high-security prison, he said. Or he could go into life-long
psychiatric care.
Breivik's case challenges a system that hopes to fix everyone.
The case has unearthed
levels of anger that are uncharacteristic of Norway, which prides itself
as a home for conflict mediation and human rights, a place that hosts
the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and has one of the best standards of
living in the world.
Last week, a man lit himself on fire outside the Oslo courthouse where Breivik's trial is taking place. His motives were unclear, police said.
"(Breivik) doesn't
deserve to go to prison," said Camilla Bjerke, 27, who tends bar in
Horten, the town on the other side of the water from Bastoy. "He
deserves to be hanged outside the courthouse. ... He's just going to go
into prison and watch TV and download movies."
Then there's this
sentiment: If Breivik were ever released into the public, someone would
kill him, several Norwegians said. Inmates at Bastoy echoed those
sentiments, saying he would have to be quarantined or he wouldn't be
safe on the island.
Others are trying to fight that anger.
Bjorn Ihler, a
20-year-old who narrowly escaped Breivik's shooting spree by diving into
the ocean with two children while bullets flew at them, said, "it's
very important that we don't let this terrorist change the way we are
and the way things work."
"The prison system in
Norway is based around the principle of getting criminals back into
society, really, and away from their criminal life -- and to get them
normal jobs and stuff like that," he said.
He doesn't know how he
would feel if Breivik were to be released, but he would like the system
to function as usual. "So prisons must be very much focused on getting
people to a place where they are able to live normal, non-criminal
lives. And that's the best way of preserving society from crime, I
think."
Looking to the future
All of these efforts aim
to help a person like Vala, the gentle giant who strangled his
girlfriend, to get ready for release back into society at the end of his
10-year sentence.
After he helped a
toddling calf come into the world, Vala said, he leaned on a rail next
to the cow's pen and thought about his life and the murder that landed
him here. The symbolism that he had used his hands to end one life and
help begin another was not lost on him. "I stayed for six hours," he
said. "It was very beautiful."
The night he killed his
girlfriend, Vala says, he blacked out and then came to with his hands
around her neck, after she was dead.
"We never fight," he said. "We never do. So I don't know what happened."
He felt helpless and out of control when he came to.
But now he's trying to
pull it together. He decided to quit drinking for good. And when he's
working with animals, he said, feels a new calm wash over him.
It's a change the prison
guards have noted, too. Sigurd Vedvik said he met Vala while he was
serving out the earlier part of his sentence in a high-security prison.
Vedvik was screening him for entry into Bastoy. Vala barely could
communicate. He seemed broken.
"When he first came
here, he was very afraid of many people," said Vedvik, who sees himself
as more of a teacher or social worker than a person who enforces
security.
Now, Vala is making
friends. Talking more. Taking responsibility for the cattle he's tasked
with caring for. He strokes the cows' necks so gently, it seems as if
he's worried they will shatter.
When Vala leaves Bastoy, he plans to go into the construction business and hopes to find some way to spend time on a farm.
"I'm trying to think to my future."
That's something he couldn't do after the murder.
And it took a posh prison -- one with cattle and horses -- to get him into that state of mind.
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