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"Hardened Criminals Held in Freedom: Doing Time on Norway's Island Prison"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this interesting, lengthy piece from Germany's Spiegel Online. Here is how it gets started and a few notable passages: No bars. No walls. No armed guards.  The prison island of Bastøy in Norway is filled with some of the country's most hardened criminals.  Yet it emphasizes self-control instead of the strictly regulated regimens common in most prisons.  For some inmates, it is more than they can handle.... There is only one pistol on Bastøy -- a bronze sculpture in the warden's office. The warden, Arne Nilsen, is a slim man in his early sixties, a man who doesn't need a uniform to convey his authority.  He doesn't know where the pistol came from.  It's always been there. The warden is a man who deals in freedom...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 23, 2011 (boomark / email).