Order Description
Research paper arguing that the US can implement certain characteristics of the Norwegian prison system in order to decrease it’s rate of recidivism, which is hovering at around ~70%. Norway’s recidivism rate is ~30% due to their progressive rehabilitative nature of punishment.
Introduction:
Explain the use of harmony in a government, explain Aristotle, community, the definition of morals, moral code, character, and how different philosophers explain these.
Literature Review/ Part of Intro….
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or education
–Michael Foucault

In 1999, _____ committed ______ crime. As he is an American citizen, America usually requests their citizens back for punishment under the American penal code. The United States then asked for extradition of an American prisoner, ______. The Norwegian Supreme Court, however, declared that U.S. prisons do not meet the minimum humanitarian standard, and denied the extradition request.
Norway in this act exposed America, a country known as a world regulator amongst global actors and one of the most powerful countries in the world, for our foundational structure on how we punish and the sociological division between law abiding and offending Americans. It is important to note that conditions in confinement centers have not been prominent in American political dialogue specifically what really is the ultimate goal of incarceration centers and how such conditions correlates to the goal of prisons. Is the ultimate goal to keep offenders from returning to prison or separating populations for the safety of the general population?
I am observing and analyzing two different incarceration structures, the United States and Norway, and their effects on the incarcerated populations. I will dissect what behaviors we punish with incarceration, prison life, and recidivism rates for both structures to answer the ultimate question: how should we most effectively punish those who commit crimes?
To take an in-depth view of the two prisons systems, we must look at the birth of both systems and their manifestation to today’s prison systems and the theories that have changed history’s wind direction. The major punishment theories we will analyze are deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, focusing on therapy, and incapacitation.

Deterrence
Deterrence is one of the leading theories in American penology. Deterrence theorists argue that legal codes of conduct must be clearly defined to all citizens, meaning an individual knows the moral difference between right and wrong within the community. Deterrence theory assumes that all community members adhere to codes of conduct because they are rational individuals and voluntarily believe that the roots of moral codes fruits collective harmony. Subjects avoid breaching established code as the action threatens the harmony and their own inherent interest of safety. Violating group harmony and fear of receiving an individual punishment from society deters the population from committing crime. A basic example is Mary, Tommy’s mother. Mary clearly tells Tommy to not throw the ball in the house. Mary creates this specific code of conduct for the purpose of household’s harmony. The disruption of harmony would be if Tommy breaks a valuable household item and Tommy fears his own interest because his mother would punish him if the ball is thrown in the house.
Tommy over time, learns these household laws and adheres to them for his own self-interest in preservation. Cesarre Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, utilitarian philosophers, were the forefathers of the deterrence theory, and claim Tommy is a rational human being, defined as one who makes decisions based on self-interest, because of the innate feelings between pleasure and pain. Bentham says:
Pain and pleasure are the great springs of human action. When a man perceives or supposes pain to be the consequence of an act, he is acted upon in such a manner as tends, with a certain force, to withdraw him, as it were, from the commission of that act. If that apparent magnitude, or rather value of that pain be greater than the apparent magnitude or value of the pleasure or good he expects to be the consequence of the act, he will be absolutely prevented form performing it.
Bentham argues that humans are rational, calculating individuals, and grasp ideas such as consequences for actions long-term. If an action has a negative association, then the individual will not perform the act, and therefore exercises rational thought.
Beccaria stresses that all humans have the capacity to understand the relationship between action and consequence as it is always certain. He says, “The certainty of punishment, even if it be moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of another which is more terrible but combined with the hope of impunity…when they are certain, always terrify men’s minds…” Rational beings will avoid committing crime and disrupting harmony out of the derived fear of definite punishment.
Timothy O’Shea, a professor and Director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of South Alabama, furthers Beccaria and Bentham’s theories on deterrence and asserts that their ideas are alive and well today. In “Getting the Deterrence Message Out,” he says, “…humans will choose the one [option] that is most likely to satisfy their self-interest, however defined; and humans seek pleasure and avoid pain.” He argues that there needs to be a probable link between the criminal justice system and violators and that “swift, certain, and severe punishment for the violator is likely to affect the nature and extent of crime. ” Accordingly, the greater the fear of committing crime, the less likely one is to commit crime.
Another example illustrating deterrence is in parking tickets. Rational persons make a cost benefit analysis after seeing a red no-parking sign: Is $X amount and time associated with paying the ticket that I am risking worth violating legal code? Is it likely? O’Shea argues that a $500 fine in this case versus a $30 fine then corrects the violating behavior because humans will avoid the self-inflicted pain of severe monetary loss.
Using the above example, deterrence theorists believe in two types of deterrence: specific and general. Specific deterrence is when one breaks the parking code and receives a $500 fine. The offender may have not conducted an accurate cost benefit analysis before choosing to commit crime and the vivid memory of monetary loss for breaking established code will alter the future behavior. The negative experience of the specific punishment (loss of $500) deters the individual from repeating the offense.
For specific deterrence to be true, criminology professors Shawn Bushway and Raymond Paternoster, argue that if specific deterrence occurs, two points must be met: “first, penalties that are imposed on an offender should increase the certainty and severity of punishment that the offender expects; second, the offender will refrain from criminal behavior as a result. Specific deterrence is illustrated from how common it is to see meter maids driving eye-catching vehicles with flashing lights while writing tickets and posting them on cars. This physical display underscores specific deterrence elements in that punishment is likely certain because it is observed for parking violations and will prevent future crime from occurring. Second, the punishment the offender expects is severe as illustrated through the exponential fine increase. The certain, swift and severe punishment of parking tickets in our penal code is to control and prevent this behavior from continuing.
The second strain of deterrence is general deterrence, and asserts that the mere existence of pain as a consequence of committing a crime will deter potential offenders from offending. General deterrence differs from specific in that if punishment is certain, one does not need to experience punishment to be aware of its certain inherent harm on one’s self. Individuals see crime’s imminent harm on an individual’s self-interest everywhere. American television is filled with shows centered on individuals committing violent, gruesome acts and their participation in the criminal justice system. Criminals are depicted in Oz, Prison Break, Law and Order, Alcatraz, the 7 o’clock news, and create the image that these acts are more commonplace, and in every case are caught and punished. General deterrence is readily found, and all one has to do is turn on the TV.
Kamala D. Harris, former District Attorney of San Francisco, furthers this culture claim in her book “Smart on Crime.” Deterrence is shown on television from the genesis of a crime, to conviction, and lastly, imprisonment. She comments against deterrence and the effects of deterrence on popular culture vs empirical evidence for children,
…many children today grow up in communities where they are surrounded by drug dealing and violence. Among other negative consequences, is that many of their relatives and role models have been in and out of prison for as long as they can remember. This child does not grow up with the idea in his or her head that prison is a horrible punishment; this child grows up with the notion that eventually everybody goes to prison- Uncle William, Cousin Alfred, my best friend’s dad who used to always buy me ice cream. It may not be a day at the beach or summer camp, but to these children, prison is a place where beloved men and sometimes women go for long or short periods of time. It has in some sense become normal. Normal is not a very good deterrent. (98).
Harris argues that deterrence and knowing the difference between right and wrong is widely available on television and in popular culture, but alters deterrence theory’s projected outcome when prison is common for adolescents’’ role models as seeing the flashing lights of meter maids. (not sure if clear)
The fear of participating in actions that trigger a punishment as a consequence alters our actions. In Do Prisons Make Us Safer?, Bushway and Paternoster state that “general deterrence claims that there is an inverse relationship between the objective properties of punishment and crime. For example, if state A punishes armed robbery with an average of prison sentence of five years, and state B punished armed robbery with an average prison sentence of three years, general deterrence would predict that there will be less armed robbery in state A than state B.” Essentially, deterrence argues that a community with a strict penal system correlates to less crime, compared to other communities with less strict punishments. If this were true, a test of general deterrence is to examine two countries where two people commit the same crime. The country with the more severe punishment would see less offenders of this crime than the other country.
In The Case Against Punishment, Deidre Golash argues that deterrence, as a whole is hard to prove because you cannot give quantitative data of crimes people do not commit. Yet, deterrence is the main tool utilized by our American Justice system. Golash argues that its inherent in human nature to preserve ones self interest of avoiding punishment but that punishment is not clear in the moment it occurs. In the example above, two criminals in different geographic regions would calculate the severity of the punishment before committing it in each respective location. Golash claims it is unreasonable to expect this type of behavior and humans do not possess that level of methodically planned rationale. She says that cigarette smoking and alcohol are excellent examples of this. People smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol for the immediate effects and are not deterred because what is the immediate harm? Humans, naturally, sway towards impulsivity and it is not innate in our behavior to plan long-term. If this is true, then deterrence theory, the prominent theory in American penal system, is inherently flawed in that why people commit crime in the first place is widely misunderstood.
Golash explains that there is no concrete evidence for deterrence theory because we can’t measure actions people don’t perform and there is no understanding behind why some offenders become habitual offenders and others do not. She says, “Most people have other reasons – such as reasons of conscience and effects on reputation- to refrain from committing such crimes. People who lack such reasons – who instead expect criminal behavior to enhance their reputations, or who are not deterred by pangs of conscience- may well be less responsive to punitive measures as well. ” This underscores Harris’ claim in an individual’s own definition of reputation as it is tied to crime and punishment could be vastly different in another’s. Fear is of punishment is desensitized to certain groups, such as youths who see the effects of imprisonment second hand.
On the other hand, O’Shea argues that deterrence functions on a larger scale that we cannot begin to quantify its effects with a macroscopic lens. He argues that it is undoubtedly true that humans avoid pains, such as loss of rights of imprisonment. He says, “Public policies implied by the neoclassical school are likely to be limited to and directed toward influencing the rational calculations of those predisposed to criminal behavior. Increase the costs of offending, and society thus reduces the likelihood of the offender’s choosing the offense option.” O’Shea explains that offenders and potential offenders must have previous knowledge of the extent of how crime is punished, and their crime specifically. (I don’t know how to incorporate this just yet)

Retributivist
Retributivist theories of punishment argue that punishment is just because it is deserved to the offender. This theory surrounds itself solely from an ethical standpoint, that the offender should take responsibility and accountability for their actions. Mark D. White, author of the book Retributivism, defines the term as, “the view that punishment is justified and motivated by considerations of justice, rights, and desert, rather than by personal or societal consequences…” Michael Davis, who during the 1980s wrote about retributivism when the theory was gaining prominence in theorist circles, says that retribution, although often seen next to each other, is different from restitution. Retribution, he says, “involves imposing a loss on the offender measured from the status quo ante. For example, a thief returning what was taken to the victim and reestablishing equilibrium is restitution. Taking enough from the thief so that what he is left with is less than what he had before the offense is reflective of retribution, tipping the scale towards the victim.”
R.A. Duff focuses on the communication aspect of this theory. He says punishment communicates disapproval to offenders, and offenders should receive harsh treatment because it is justified. Some scholars argue that implementing such harsh punishments is cruel and too far if the goal is simply to deter crime. Duff analyzes that the purpose of punishment is to “provoke certain types of emotion” such as guilt and anger. Whether these emotions stay self-directed and not outwardly directed, is a very delicate line of how the act of punishment itself is communicated. If the punishment is too severe, and the offender feels victimized by the extreme punishment, then the anger is more likely to be projected outward, possibly towards the community it feels ill-treated by. If the punishment is fair, then the relationship between the offender and recidivism could potentially diverge as the offender would more likely feel self-directed guilt and anger at oneself for actions wronging the community. Duff says, “whilst internal to censure is the intention, or hope, that the person censured will accept the censure as justified and will thus be motivated to avoid crime in future, this kind of account can avoid the charge (as brought against consequentialist theories) that it seeks to coerce or manipulate offenders into obeying the law.” At the end of the day, is the end goal of punishment to create a united governed population – to strengthen the relationship between wrongdoers and the community – or to ostracize wrongdoers from those who are law-abiding? Duff argues that retributivism theory fits in the latter category, and that a fair punishment focuses on directing oneself to “keep his attention focused on what he has done, and to provide a structure within which he can face up to his wrongdoing and on what he must to do avoid its repetition.”
Furthering Duff’s argument on punishment serving as a vehicle for communication, some scholars debate that retributivism structure also simplifies highly complex issues. Although retributivism does rely on individualism in that the punishment must be proportional to the crime committed by the individual, Christ Cunneen argues the theory is more universalist. He says retributivism, “simplifies what is in reality a highly complex set of social, political, and cultural relations in which justice and particularly punishment are embedded… makes it more difficult to understand how the law operates through civil society.” Per Cunneen, we must have a deeper foundational understanding why people commit crime and underscores the ideas represented in rehabilitation, which creates a more inclusive relationship between wrongdoers and the community, as outlined below.

Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation in the modern definition of the term, began in the late 19th century and gained popularity from the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformative Discipline in 1870. The conference stipulated declarations to improve upon the penal system. These included, “the establishment of adult reformatories, in conjunction with (1) the indeterminate sentence, (2) a mark/classification system, (3) intensive academic and vocational instruction, (4) constructive labor, (5) humane disciplinary methods, and (6) parole.” Probation was born during this time with John Augustus, a shoemaker, who “personally posted bail and served as a guardian to approximately two thousands offenders.”
The above-mentioned points underscore the numerous social conditions steering people to commit crime. These include having an absent parent, socio-economic status, education, mental disease, amongst other data points. Rehabilitation understands the various motivations for committing crime and offers social programs with the goal of decreasing the likelihood of recommitting crime. These programs include psychotherapy, vocational and educational training, and are available to offenders inside and outside of prison. Rehabilitation programs hope to counsel people away from their need and inclination to commit crime and focuses on the offender’s individual conditions and requires analysis of motivating factors. The process functions to alter the psychological proclivity to commit crime.
In Why Punish, How Much, Francis Allen highlights how the use of psychiatry to steer rehabilitation policies varies with new scientific developments arising everyday. He agrees that humans are by nature, reactive, in that we are all products of “antecedent causes” and that is it the “obligation of the scientist to discover and to describe them with all possible exactitude. Knowledge of the antecedents of human behavior makes possible an approach to the scientific contro¬l of human behavior” (98). He believes that the science of psychiatry has limited data points and is very much open to various interpretations on how to rehabilitate a certain population. He says, “the language of therapy” can be used “to disguise the true state of affairs that prevail in our custodial institutions and at other points in the correctional process.” Allen thinks that some measures can be put forward on the merit of rehabilitation, when really, it can be very detrimental. Allen recounts a visit to a juvenile institution focusing on disturbed children, which was enthusiastically promoted by its respective state legislature with the merit of fostering new advances for helping children. A supervising psychiatrist was lecturing the group on the “custodial problems” and in order to combat the issue, gave a “euphemistic label for a cell solitary confinement” and how that was used in its treatment of children.
Allen asserts that rehabilitation and the use of psychiatry to better understand the offending population can indeed boast new levels of understanding aimed at decreasing crime. At the same time, the science of psychiatry can have a wide margin in varied interpretations and therefore there is a high importance in exercising caution when using psychiatry as a chief instrument in steering rehabilitation policies.
An important note is that rehabilitation does utilize outside stakeholders and broadens the punishment dialogue previously reserved for two parties: the government communicating punishment policies and the offender. More members of the community are included through the use of therapy, education, vocational training, and other rehabilitative efforts. These people include teachers, therapists, and probation workers. The level of accountability is spread over varied groups of people and gives the offender additional data points of accountability for their actions, which provides additional motives to conform to rehabilitation policies. Theoretically, rehabilitation policies bring the offender closer to the community and policy makers through creating a more inclusive relationship amongst the three stakeholders in unified self-preservation.
Some scholars argue that it is completely up to the offender to be willing to rehabilitate, and that offering rehabilitation to offenders unwilling to reform will not deter them from changing their innate criminal inclinations. Vivian Stern, in A Sin Against the Future, states that rehabilitation is not always effective because “most programmes of seemingly rehabilitative value have very little effect on whether or not a prisoner gets into further trouble outside… no one can force another human being to be rehabilitated. Change has to come from within…” A method for persuading change, Stern argues, is to change how inmates are treated while incarcerated. She says, “…cruelty is forbidden, because that will not bring out the good in people. So are violence and brutality. Humiliation is not acceptable. Pointless labor such as dismantling old electricity cables that no one will use is out. Prisoners cannot be paraded in front of the public. Chain gangs are contrary to the rehabilitative ideal…rights [need to be] respected.” Stern asserts that rehabilitation policies can have a positive effect, but there needs to be a certain environment structured in order for these policies to be fruitful. Those incarcerated, where civil liberties have already been taken away, are positioned at the start of incarceration to reject rehabilitation. Inmates will be more accepting of rehabilitation if they are in an environment where they feel respected, treated humanely, and given purpose with rights that are respected.
In Punishment in America, Cyndi Banks, an associate professor of criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, discusses America’s current use of rehabilitation. She argues that America had full public support of rehabilitation, but in the 1970s and onward, America shifted its perspective towards other methods, such as incapacitation, deterrence, and retributivism, and rehabilitation has been on the decline. Today, our legislatures responsible for creating our penal code do not all agree on the potential for rehabilitation. Senator Denton Darrington from Idaho, a legislator who directly impacts prison laws and regulations, believes that people in prison for drug offenses should be given treatment, but those who supply them to misguided youths should be given harsh punishments. He says, “There is another group of people in Idaho prisons for drug offenses who are not dopers, they are entrepreneurs. They don’t need treatment. They are dangerous and need punishment… We’re not putting people in prison for smoking a joint, but because they supplied the dope that destroyed young people’s and adults’ lives. That’s fair.” Senator Darrington illustrates the inherent flaw in our penal system that rehabilitation requires – inclusion of the offending party. By singling out a certain demographic that Darrington has deemed undeserving of rehabilitation programs, further distances offenders from policy makers that enforces negative dialogue between the two parties. Revisiting Duff’s importance on how communication affects inward and outwards emotions associated with being punished, Darrington’s stance on limiting rehabilitating programs to specific offenders promotes outwardly directed emotions of guilt and anger versus inward. Senator Darrington’s interpretation of rehabilitation in our penal code illustrates the progression of rehabilitation culturally and how this can provide a mix on policies that are affecting the inside of prisons today. It should be noted that Senator Darrington is not alone in thinking that rehabilitation programs can culturally be seen as a reward for committing crime. Rush Limbaugh, for example, is quoted for saying, “There’s a simple way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish those who do not.” Limbaugh and Senator Darrington provide important accounts of how rehabilitation policies can have a great impact on rehab programs and how they can be easily fragmented by (de)funding, reserved for certain groups, and affecting the narrative between the penal code, offenders, and community members.

Incapacitation
It is notable that one of the predominant forms of punishment in America today does not fall under any of these classical theories, but a new invention of the justice system. Incapacitation, disallowing offenders to have the capacity to further commit crime, uses prison as place to quarantine offenders they deem liable to reoffend. California’s Three Strikes law, where if an offender after deemed guilty of a third offense, is sentenced to life in prison, is an example of incapacitation. Three Strikes could be argued that comes from the deterrence playbook, but there is a stark difference in how it looks at an offender. Whitley Kauffman, Professor at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, states that although the common denominator is the prevention of future crime, but that incapacitation “entails giving up on a member of society, treating him as a wild animal that needs to be caged but that cannot hope to re-enter society as a rational being.” The underlying difference is that hope is distilled within the other theories –deterrence, retributivism and rehabilitation– where the offender will be released back into society on the hopes they will not want to or have the need to be punished again. The unilateral dialogue that the American political system constructs for inmates is particularly important when we explore the ______________ (something about inmates and their want to reform because of their inclusion in political dialogue on penal policy?).
Interestingly, Kaufman asserts that a reason why incapacitation has been so widely accepted is that is not particularly associated with “liberal or conservative programs.” Through its exponential growth in penal policy, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kaufman says, “the current consensus is that the current system of punishment has, if anything, an anti-rehabilitative effect, hardening prisoners into a life of ever more crime rather than the opposite.” We can infer from incapacitation that Americans who have committed crime more than 3 offences, statistically have a zero percent chance of reformation.

Statement of Research and Method
Methodology
My research combines scholarly literature and case studies focusing on methods of punishment and its link to recidivism. Additionally, I incorporate my own research of interviewing prison professionals. In order to grasp the foundations of our prison system, I concentrated on published works about different penal theories. I surveyed scholars to find uniformity on which theories proved to be the most effective. Second, I focused on historical trends in the United States and how the theories have been represented over time, in addition to the use of different penal theories and its affect of inmate population levels. The historical aspect also served as a foundation for understanding the roots of the difficulties of the current prison system, and the relationships of communication between the offender, the community, and the legislature.
I also focused on case studies surrounding the role prisons play on recidivism, and what differentiates the success and failure for parolees. One case study conducted by Bahr, Harris, Fisher, and Armstrong, followed 51 parolees for three years, and gives understanding on how effective prison resources are, and what elements keep parolees connected to the community.
I present my own empirical research through a comparative case study on Norwegian prisons, Bastoy and ____, and an American prison, _____. The comparative model functioned to show different incarceration structures and their effects on the incarcerated populations, in addition to their projected societal roles once released. I chose Norway and America because they show the theoretical extremes, where Norway focuses on reintegration and America focuses on deterrence and retributive models. I strove to find concrete, physical examples that brought to light the conditions of prisons, such as security, cells, food, relationship and communication with prison staff, in addition to the importance these prisons placed on resources given while incarcerated, like education and vocational skills.
In addition to historical, sociological, psychological, and theoretical literature research, I conducted interviews with prison staff members. I talked to a probation officer in San Francisco, a maximum-security prison psychiatrist, and a female Norwegian prison guard. The subjects were interviewed using the following general guiding thoughts:
1. The role that prison staff plays in the measures geared toward reintegration into society
2. The physical description of prisons themselves, since every prison is different and it is an institution closed to the public
3. Their thoughts on their hope of the system and whether inmates have the capacity to change while incarcerated (in any system)
4. Reasons on how to better their respective system
These guiding questions helped me better understand the most foreign institution. One can read all the literature in the world, but still not fully grasp the hurdles prison staff members have to overcome, like following legal bureaucratic measures.
Interpretive Lens
I first became interested in incarceration while working on a juvenile delinquency and prevention commission for Santa Cruz County in my teens. Then, during my undergraduate degree, I sought after classes concerned with the link between sociology, law, and prisons. From my personal history, I had preconceived notions regarding the American prison system’s shortcomings, and how it has failed to comprehensively evaluate recidivism. It is especially important to note that around 60% of the current incarcerated population will at some point return to prison. With that, I am looking at this topic through an economical lens, because lowering recidivism will lower government costs, or your tax dollars, on each individual incarcerated.
Challenges/Goal
My goal is to understand what elements are key in preventing people from committing crime on a habitual basis. My finding is that recidivism relies on the communication between the offender, the local community, and the government, who serves as an authoritarian figure. What greatly reduces the chances of an offender from reoffending is the positive communication between the offender and the community. My goal is to find the three greatest differences that can strengthen bond between the offender and community that would ultimately lower recidivism.
I acknowledge that my basis of finding these programs comes from pulling models from very dissimilar countries. The largest impediment is that Norway looks nothing like the United States. Norway is a homogenous society whereas the United States has grown up on the foundations of multiculturalism and therefore very heterogeneous. How hundreds of different cultures and ethnicities blend together within the confines of the United States proves to be a unique study and creates different variables on what can be successfully implemented in the penal system. I am more interested in Norway’s political dialogue with its population and whether that conversation has the power to be a change agent to alter the behavior of a large group of individuals.
Overall, I should note that I do not believe that Norway is a utopian society that America can mimic entirely. There are principals that Norway utilizes and if we implement them, they can actually look very different. With that said, America needs to analyze successful outside models of punishment in order to inspire change within our dismally failing penal system.

Body
America has been the epicenter of efficiency, perfecting systems that other nations have adopted as a model to develop their respective systems, with industrial manufacturing, the internet and the credit system being some of the most recognized. American ideological roots have been shown to propagate in other countries and it therefore becomes even more crucial to understand our penal system and the effects it has on not only on an individual level, but the communities at large, because it has a much larger global influence. At the same time, although American prisons have developed into efficient machines, such as providing the basic needs for mass quantities, we have moved away from focusing on long term results. According to the National Institute of Justice, within five years of release, about 76.6% of released prisoners were rearrested in 2005. Further, of those prisoners who were rearrested, 56.7% were arrested by the end of the first year. Interestingly, type of crime committed does not have a great influence on one’s proclivity on committing another crime with rate of recidivism ranging from 71.3%-82.1%. The National Institute of Justice cites that “property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1% of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with 76.9% of drug offenders, 73.6% of public order offenders and 71.3% of violent offenders.”
What can we take away from these statistics? That our justice system is directly failing a large population and has an immense indirect influence globally. Abrupt change needs to occur in order to lower our crime rates and we must now look at how other justice systems function in order to perfect our own. Other countries, such as those in the Scandinavian region, have actually shifted more towards rehabilitation as opposed to deterrence. Norway, in particular, believes in amenities and luxuries, and treats their inmates as patients in a rehabilitation center. Bastoy, A Norwegian prison, illustrates an extreme rehabilitation and reintegration model. In this prison, offenders live on a commune and live in houses that simulate the real world. The Norwegian prison system believes that other approaches toughen up criminals and actually breeds more crime than to prevent it from occurring in the future. Prison guards are characterized as amicable and many prisons employ female guards. This ideal is also underscored in the penal code, where the maximum sentence is 21 years for every type of crime, including murder.
The Norwegian justice system has proven to be effective. An article states, “an extensive new study undertaken by researchers across all the Nordic countries reveals that the reoffending average across Europe is about 70-75 per cent. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the average is 30 per cent. In Norway it is 20 per cent. Thus Bastoy, at just 16 per cent, has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe.”
This paper first seeks to estimate the current American system through analyzing the direction punishment has taken historically and the repercussions of those decisions stemming from the 1960s. Tracing our steps from the past century shows the existence of a divide between the population and those who commit crime, and important in understanding our current system today through its evolution. The role of the state is reflected through the standards installed by society. Second, an analysis of the Norwegian prison system will prove to illuminate distinct features that have shown to be successful. A comparison between the two will serve as a tool to discover which features can be integrated in the current American system.
Key Points in American Penological History
In the 1870s to the 1930s, America saw exponential population increases due to immigration. People amassed in cities where there were ample job opportunities. The cities, however, became “afflicted with poverty, disease, overcrowded slums, and crime” and called for stronger regulatory bodies. The American government invested in science and developed systematic approaches in response to rising urban needs. In doing so, America moved into the Progressive Era and in effect formed the welfare state.
The prison system inherited this shift in ideology, and can be traced from the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformative Discipline in 1870. Thomas Bloomberg and Karol Lucken, professors of Criminology and Criminal Justice, respectively, say the conference asserted, “Isolation, lockstep marching, and striped uniforms debilitated one’s manhood.” Instead, the conference stipulated certain conditions that would serve to improve the overall system. These included, “the establishment of adult reformatories, in conjunction with (1) the indeterminate sentence, (2) a mark/classification system, (3) intensive academic and vocational instruction, (4) constructive labor, (5) humane disciplinary methods, and (6) parole.” Probation was also created during this time by John Augustus, a shoemaker, who “personally posted bail and served as a guardian to approximately two thousands offenders.” America kept a rehabilitative position until the 1920s, where crime rates increased and people began to call into question the reformative structure in place. In “Punishment in the American Democracy: The Paradoxes of Good Intentions,” Dario Melossi and Mark Lettiere describe the physical change in prisons during this time. They say, “Its architecture was foreboding, as tiers of massive concrete and steel cells and other features like the wall and the yard, told of the Big House’s fortress-like quality.” Prison culture also began to emerge, where the classic images of inmates in black and white striped jumpsuits engraved slashes on walls to represent days incarcerated, and appeared in films in the 1940s. Prisons function as a vehicle for deterrence, and America perpetuated this philosophy through the next few decades.
In the 1960s, Americans were starkly conservative on their views of crime while experiencing political assassinations, violence within the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. George Winslow, journalist and author of the book Capital Crimes, says Richard Nixon used this sentiment to advantageously push a conservative agenda. In effect, this “allowed conservatives to pursue a draconian law-and-order crackdown on street crime while simultaneously attacking government programs designed to address the social causes of crime…” Melossi and Lettiere argue that the 1960s-70s exhibit Durkheim’s theory that “social change breeds anomie… ceteris paribus, there will probably be an increase in deviant activities…There will be an effort by the elites attached to the cultural values and to the material advantages of the old order, to defend it by reestablishing their legitimacy through the use of all available means of social control.” Essentially, there are values inherited through generations. In the 1950s, you have an era focused on a consensus culture and suburban ideals. The political turmoil through the following decades challenged people’s views of conventional roles and created anxiety through this generation. The political turmoil bred deviant activity.
Political changes have a great value in understanding criminology, proving to manifest the implicit dialogue between how different communities, and even different generations, identify each other. The progressive era had a heightened need for social assistance. Americans saw themselves on equal playing fields – everyone was affected by the Great Depression, where the majority needed government aid. The positive dialogue between authority figures or the government with the community, such as providing financial aid, trickled down to offenders who felt unified with the community at large.
In the 1960s, politicians created class divisions through highlighting dissimilarities between ‘career criminals’ and those who do not commit crime, instilling fear as a method of winning votes. The friction between those commit crime and the community functioned to unify politicians with the latter group, and the legislature was then able to popularize the ‘tough on crime’ sentiment. In this sense, I qualify Durkheim’s theory and assert that social control was a product of this marginalization, but its primary function was to appeal to the masses and ultimately, a larger voting pool.
Fran Buntman, professor of sociology at George Washington University explains, “Dostoevsky, Mandela, and other have long noted that prisons expose social realities, often hidden, particularly inequality and gaps between policy and practice. Prisons symbolize, mirror, and shape the communities and countries in which they exist… Policies and practices of imprisonment reflect social order, especially structures of inequality and understandings of legitimate power and opposition.” Prisons are indicative of a larger problem of how we view and interpret social issues. The transition from the 1950s to 1960s proves to show how there was a rupture in the relationship between society and the government, where people were confused about the evolution of societal roles. What did it now mean to be a citizen when so many people were questioning the government’s legitimacy, and were accustomed to a consensus culture? The social order’s lack of harmony was due to communities not being as secure as they were a decade earlier, and this was eventually symbolized through the prison system.
[Insert key historical points representing the 1980s/90s]
The evolution of dialogue surrounding punishment in America has shown of the disassociation Americans have with those whom they do not closely identify with. Richard Sparks, Professor of criminology at Keele University, underscores this sentiment, “The political reaction of the 1980s and 1990s has shaped the public perception of these troubling issues, persuading us to think of them as problems of control rather than welfare…[as caused by] the irresponsible behavior of a dangerous and undeserving underclass- people who abused the new freedoms and made life impossible for the rest of us.” This idea brings us to our current state of affairs, and is illustrated by our legislators. Senator Denton Darrington from Idaho, who makes decisions that directly impact prisons, believes only certain inmates deserve rehabilitation. He says that people incarcerated for drug offences should be given treatment, but those who supply them to misguided youths should be given harsh punishments. He says, “There is another group of people in Idaho prisons for drug offenses who are not dopers, they are entrepreneurs. They don’t need treatment. They are dangerous and need punishment… We’re not putting people in prison for smoking a joint, but because they supplied the dope that destroyed young people’s and adults’ lives. That’s fair.” This is an example of tough on crime approach, where Darrington believe that this group of individuals abused their freedoms and made life impossible for the rest of Americans, and is therefore a problem of controlling their social behavior through punishment.
The American Prison Model
The inside of the prison is a reflection of how society sees inmates. In an interview with psychiatrist Mark Young, whom works at the Folsom State Prison in California, describes the inside of it as “dark, concrete, and a very depressing place to be.” Louis Theroux, a British man writes about a jail in Miami and shares a similar experience. He says:
The place has to be seen to be believed. Up to 24 inmates are crowded into a single cell, living behind metal bars on steel bunks, sharing a single shower and two toilets. Little of the bright Miami sun filters through the grilles on the windows. Visits to the yard happen twice a week for an hour. The rest of the time, inmates are holed up round the clock, eating, sleeping, and going slightly crazy.
Dr. Young, whose profession is based on the idea that rehabilitation has an affect on the inmate population, believes it has become the least important objective in our system. He explains the different populations within the prison and describes a special group called administrative segregation, or ‘ad seg’. These people are in a prison within a prison, the “most unpredictable, obnoxious, uncooperative group of people.” He says many of them are kept in isolation, single cell, and when psychologists try to see them, they are put in chains, handcuffs, etc. He says, “You have the worst [cases], where they are locked up to protect other prisoners, so we’re going to punish them, and [as a society] we don’t care how much they suffer… this makes them much worse when they’re locked up by themselves.”
Not only are the physical conditions draining on inmates, Dr. Young describes how many inmates have the emotional capacity of twelve-year-old, where “they have very little coping skills.” Dr. Young notes that this group is especially in need of psychiatric care, yet ironically have a harder time accessing the resource. Oftentimes, he says, “Sometimes when [correctional officers] say [inmates] refuse [to be seen by a therapist or psychiatrist], the guards say they refuse, but they really didn’t. You don’t know if it’s [the inmate] or the guards.” The correctional officers have a large role to play in the dynamics of the prison yet are not positive influences. Dr. Young notes that of the correctional officers, “half of them are hostile.”
When describing the jail he visited, Theroux says that the inmates are “living like animals” and that they “had lost their grip on social norms.” This brings to an interesting point, if correctional facilities are so detached from social norms, how do we expect inmates to react when they are released back into society?
Other countries have answered this question by departing from the American model of punishment. Norway, for example, built Halden prison in 2010 that has been described as “plush” and “the most humane prison.” The facility took ten years and an equivalent of $252 million USD in order to house those who have committed the worst offenses, like murder and rape. $252 million USD is a high price to pay for humane treatment, however California alone spent $8.795 billion in the 2007 fiscal year on corrections and the number exponentially increases each year.
The Norwegian Prison Model
Norway, along with other Scandinavian countries such as Finland and Sweden, has a large number of small prisons. These facilities function differently compared to American standards. According to the Global Post, all inmates start their sentences in traditional ‘closed’ prisons. They can then apply to be in an ‘open’ prison, which serves as “inducements for good behavior and an opportunity towards the end of long sentences to prepare for release. Between 14 and 20 per cent of referrals to open prisons are recalled to closed institutions for breaches of the rules each year.”
Norway has not always had such an emphasis on reintegration. [Insert history of Norwegian prison system] (see article#1, page 4)
“The more secure facilities share some of the ills their American counterparts are known for, including high drug abuse, lack of education and job opportunities, which means most detainees spend 23 out of 24 hours locked in their cells,” according to the Global Post. Even so, the atmosphere of the prison itself is very different. John Pratt, who studies Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian prison systems for their remarkably low crime rates, says that Norwegian closed prisons are still very comfortable. “What strikes any visitor familiar with Anglo-American prisons is the personal space and relative material comfort for most prisoners… Prisoners have televisions in their cells, usually state provided… internal sanitation… Outside of maximum security conditions, movement within the prisons is relatively relaxed.” Inmates also will have their own room, where, as Pratt explains, “Double bunking is quite uncommon.” One observer explains, “It feels like an open prison, even if it is officially a closed one.”
‘Open’ prisons, on the other hand, do not have bars on rooms, high security locks, tall electric fences, nor wear bright orange jumpsuits. Instead, inmates are assigned jobs or go to school and are allowed to leave the facilities to go into the towns. Leonard Baer and Bodil Ravnberg discuss the degree of openness in open facilities. They state, “Prisons have become more open to the public in general as well as for social science researchers.” Norwegians assert that if prisons are more open, and simulate the outside world, then adjusting back once free from incarceration will pave a smoother road for transition. Baer and Ravnberg describe the prison, “I feel that the atmosphere is like the outside. In the teacher’s room, the prisoners come and go as they please, using the telephone or sitting on the sofa, talking or reading a newspaper. Here I feel as if the surroundings are just like outside. ”
Baer and Ravnberg focus their case study on the dualities between the prison world and the outside, based on Francis Foucault’s work on heterotopia. [insert Foucault’s quote on heterotopia] Heterotopia they explain, are real places that have a mirror effect on society, and especially relate to prisons because “confinement cuts through every aspect of society.” Heterotopia applies to the Norwegian system of incarceration because it truly represents society’s understanding of those who commit crime. Prisons present a phenomenon where inmates are so disconnected from the outside world. Norway still maintains closed prisons, however open prisons serve as a point of transition. [expand on heterotopia and its relation]
Two examples of ‘open’ prisons are Halden, as previously mentioned, and Bastoy. Halden was strategically built to avoid feeling like inmates were incarcerated and separated from the outside world. Designers chose big windows to allow for more sunlight to be let in and make it feel like an apartment setting, where every ten cells share a living room and kitchen. In the journal Corrections Forum, Keith Strandberg asserts that this does not equate to a luxury prison. He says, “Sure, the cells have flat screen TVs and other modern amenities, but if you are building a new prison, of course you’re not going to use outdated technology.” The use of this structure of housing is because many of the inmates, “the activities of normal life have been challenging, so they have not been able to live their lives…to teach them how to keep their apartment is very basic, but many inmates don’t have this skill,” says Strandberg.
The Halden prison model emphasizes relationships and community dependence as shown through the interactions of inmates and correctional officers. Correctional officers wear a uniform, but not in military style, and also do not carry guns. Architect Per Hojgaard Nielson says, “Many prisoners come from bad homes, so we wanted to create a sense of family.” The facility also employs many women, over half, as correctional officers so as to not create a hostile environment.
[Insert 2 paragraphs from interview with Synne, a female prison guard. Interviewed 11/1/11 ]
Andreas Skullberg, the Deputy Director General of the Correctional Services Department in Norway, describes his correctional officers, “they are very optimistic and think people can change. If you present a pessimistic view to a prisoner, he will also be pessimistic.”
The Norwegian system also stresses the importance of maintaining preexisting community ties with inmates. According to Pratt, inmates are incarcerated at close proximities to their homes. This allows inmates to maintain relationships with family members. Pratt says, “Given the extensive geographical areas of these countries, this form of prison organization allows most prisoners (unless they are maximum-security classification) to be fairly close to home and family. This fits the ethos of Scandinavian prison management, which is one of normalization, most clearly stated in the Finnish Sentences Enforcement Act of 2002… punishment is a mere loss of liberty.” The deputy director general of the Correctional Services Department, Skulberg, says that Norway follows this idea of regionalism so that “their support system is in place as much as possible.” Norway also rarely sentences imprisonment to drug addicts, for fear of disrupting their balance at home. “It is considered uncivilized to hold women in cells away from their families, so judges tend towards community punishment,” according to a British Times article. Conjugal visits are not only accepted, but are encouraged. “Most prisons (high security especially) provide accommodation where partners and children can stay free of charge for weekends- usually at monthly intervals- with the prisoners on an unsupervised basis.”
Following the mentality of only losing their right to liberty, Norwegian inmates are allowed to vote and participate in public policy measures regarding prisons. “Social distance within these prison systems seems relatively short, allowing prisoners to have direct input into prison governance… [they] are included in yearly ‘meeting in the mountains,’ where prison policy is worked through and determined by all interested parties.” Specifically, there was an initiative to build a 1,000 bed prison in Oslo. Senior legislators, prison staff members, academics and prisoner rights groups all met and discussed the proposal, where it was eventually turned down. The overall consensus is that depriving inmates the right to liberty is sufficient punishment enough, and alienating them from society by depriving them of civil liberties will only hurt the public over time.
[insert paragraph about job placement and vocational skills learned while incarcerated]
In terms of public policy, Norway does not have the death penalty in their corrections code and their maximum sentence is 21 years, irrelevant to the degree of their crime. Judges can, however, can keep an inmate incarcerated for long if they feel that society is strongly threatened. Therefore, Norwegian society is forced into developing different ideologies on how they view prisoners because they will realistically one day be reintegrated into society. And they truly believe in this concept. Arnfinn Nesset, a former nurse, killed 22 patients, only served 22 years and was released in 2004.
Pratt calls this Scandinavian exceptionalism, which is defined by “low rates of imprisonment and humane prison conditions,” and has been caused by their egalitarian culture. It is through the egalitarian culture that everyone feels attached to one another and therefore feel it inappropriate to punish a neighbor so harshly. In an interview with a prison governor, or our equivalent of a warden, Arne Kvernvik Nilsen explains, “Both society and the individual simply have to put aside their desire for revenge, and stop focusing on prisons as places of punishment and pain. Depriving a person of their freedom for a period of time is sufficient punishment in itself without any need whatsoever for harsh prison conditions.” An employee of one of the open prisons, Bastoy, summarizes Norwegian society’s sentiments, “I think most Norwegians increasingly realize that closed prisons are the old fashioned way of dealing with criminals and that in terms of rehabilitation they simply don’t work.”
What Can America Implement?
The key to Norway’s prison model is the consistent, positive dialogue maintained between inmates, prison staff, the community, and politicians. This achieved through the reward system of an open prison and amenities, employment while incarcerated, the architecture of the prison that promotes face-to-face contact, and the emphasis of political participation, such as voting. Although these ideas would translate differently in the American system, there are basic principals that we can implement that would affect recidivism.
–include interview with folsom prison staff member
Promote Amenities as a Reward System
-Weight rooms (confidence building), television, open prison reward system
-proven to promote good behavior
Employ Inmates While Incarcerated
-I understand the main argument against this is there is no need for industrial labor, however, the system was doomed to fail because of mandatory sourcing regulations. We need to lift interstate regulations (Sumners-Ashurst Act, Walsh-Healy Act)
 proved to be the most effective for reducing recidivism, so something we need to invest in. providing better machinery/equipment can prove to save money over time. (See case study, “Preventing Parolees From Returning to Prison Through Community-Based Reintegration” Zhang, Roberts, Callanan// “Successful Reentry” Bahr et al. // Life on the Outside: Returning Home After Incarceration” Visher and Travis
-The Nation: The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor
-Factories Behind Fences: Do Prison ‘Real Work’ Programs work?
-Correctional Industies preparing inmates for re-entry: Recidivism & post release employment
Promote Human Interaction Between Staff and Inmates
-no solitary confinement
-architecture of prisons
-the control of inmate movement
Disenfranchisement
-46 states have criminal disenfranchisement laws that deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison.
-32 states disenfranchise felons on parole
-29 states “ “ on probation
-14 states banned from voting for life
-this creates political outcasts and further marginalizes this community and breaks ties
Sources:
–Criminal Disenfranchisement Reform in CA, Case study by Campbell
–Collateral Consequences of a Collateral Penalty: The Negative Effect of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws on the Political Participation of Nonfelons
–BBC: Convicts ‘will not all get vote’

Conclusion
My finding is that our deteriorating system stems from societal inequalities. Toqueville stated that American democracy was so strong because of the relationship between liberty and equality.

Works Cited (not complete list)
Banks, Cyndi. “The History of Punishment in America.” Punishment in America: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005. 64. Print.
Beccaria, Cesare. “The Certainty of Punishment. Mercy.” On Crimes and Punishment. 5 ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963. 58. Print.
Bentham, Jeremy. “Of the Ends of Punishment.” The Rationale of Punishment. London: Robert Heward, 1830. 19-20. Print.
Blomberg, Thomas G., and Karol Lucken. “Progressive America and the Rise of Reformations, Parole, and Probation (1880s- 1930s).” American Penology: A History of Control. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 2000. 63. Print.
Currie, Elliott. Crime and punishment in America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998. Print.
Hernu, Piers. “Norway’s Controversial ‘Cushy Prison’ Experiment – Could It Catch On In The UK? | Mail Online.” Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers Ltd, 25 July 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1384308/Norways-controversial-cushy-prison-experiment–catch-UK.html>.
“The Super-Lux Super Max.” Foreign Policy. N.p., 25 July 2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2011. <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/25/the_super_lux_super_max>.
Thompson, Alice. “Norway Makes Prison Work- Even for Breivik.” The Times. N.p., 27 July 2011. Web. 1 Nov. 2011. <www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/…/article3106111.ece>.
Winslow, George. “Capital Crimes: The Corporate Economy of Violence.” Prison nation: the warehousing of America’s poor. New York: Routledge, 2003. 46. Print.

Order Description
Research paper arguing that the US can implement certain characteristics of the Norwegian prison system in order to decrease it’s rate of recidivism, which is hovering at around ~70%. Norway’s recidivism rate is ~30% due to their progressive rehabilitative nature of punishment.
Introduction:
Explain the use of harmony in a government, explain Aristotle, community, the definition of morals, moral code, character, and how different philosophers explain these.
Literature Review/ Part of Intro….
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or education
–Michael Foucault

In 1999, _____ committed ______ crime. As he is an American citizen, America usually requests their citizens back for punishment under the American penal code. The United States then asked for extradition of an American prisoner, ______. The Norwegian Supreme Court, however, declared that U.S. prisons do not meet the minimum humanitarian standard, and denied the extradition request.
Norway in this act exposed America, a country known as a world regulator amongst global actors and one of the most powerful countries in the world, for our foundational structure on how we punish and the sociological division between law abiding and offending Americans. It is important to note that conditions in confinement centers have not been prominent in American political dialogue specifically what really is the ultimate goal of incarceration centers and how such conditions correlates to the goal of prisons. Is the ultimate goal to keep offenders from returning to prison or separating populations for the safety of the general population?
I am observing and analyzing two different incarceration structures, the United States and Norway, and their effects on the incarcerated populations. I will dissect what behaviors we punish with incarceration, prison life, and recidivism rates for both structures to answer the ultimate question: how should we most effectively punish those who commit crimes?
To take an in-depth view of the two prisons systems, we must look at the birth of both systems and their manifestation to today’s prison systems and the theories that have changed history’s wind direction. The major punishment theories we will analyze are deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, focusing on therapy, and incapacitation.

Deterrence
Deterrence is one of the leading theories in American penology. Deterrence theorists argue that legal codes of conduct must be clearly defined to all citizens, meaning an individual knows the moral difference between right and wrong within the community. Deterrence theory assumes that all community members adhere to codes of conduct because they are rational individuals and voluntarily believe that the roots of moral codes fruits collective harmony. Subjects avoid breaching established code as the action threatens the harmony and their own inherent interest of safety. Violating group harmony and fear of receiving an individual punishment from society deters the population from committing crime. A basic example is Mary, Tommy’s mother. Mary clearly tells Tommy to not throw the ball in the house. Mary creates this specific code of conduct for the purpose of household’s harmony. The disruption of harmony would be if Tommy breaks a valuable household item and Tommy fears his own interest because his mother would punish him if the ball is thrown in the house.
Tommy over time, learns these household laws and adheres to them for his own self-interest in preservation. Cesarre Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, utilitarian philosophers, were the forefathers of the deterrence theory, and claim Tommy is a rational human being, defined as one who makes decisions based on self-interest, because of the innate feelings between pleasure and pain. Bentham says:
Pain and pleasure are the great springs of human action. When a man perceives or supposes pain to be the consequence of an act, he is acted upon in such a manner as tends, with a certain force, to withdraw him, as it were, from the commission of that act. If that apparent magnitude, or rather value of that pain be greater than the apparent magnitude or value of the pleasure or good he expects to be the consequence of the act, he will be absolutely prevented form performing it.
Bentham argues that humans are rational, calculating individuals, and grasp ideas such as consequences for actions long-term. If an action has a negative association, then the individual will not perform the act, and therefore exercises rational thought.
Beccaria stresses that all humans have the capacity to understand the relationship between action and consequence as it is always certain. He says, “The certainty of punishment, even if it be moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of another which is more terrible but combined with the hope of impunity…when they are certain, always terrify men’s minds…” Rational beings will avoid committing crime and disrupting harmony out of the derived fear of definite punishment.
Timothy O’Shea, a professor and Director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of South Alabama, furthers Beccaria and Bentham’s theories on deterrence and asserts that their ideas are alive and well today. In “Getting the Deterrence Message Out,” he says, “…humans will choose the one [option] that is most likely to satisfy their self-interest, however defined; and humans seek pleasure and avoid pain.” He argues that there needs to be a probable link between the criminal justice system and violators and that “swift, certain, and severe punishment for the violator is likely to affect the nature and extent of crime. ” Accordingly, the greater the fear of committing crime, the less likely one is to commit crime.
Another example illustrating deterrence is in parking tickets. Rational persons make a cost benefit analysis after seeing a red no-parking sign: Is $X amount and time associated with paying the ticket that I am risking worth violating legal code? Is it likely? O’Shea argues that a $500 fine in this case versus a $30 fine then corrects the violating behavior because humans will avoid the self-inflicted pain of severe monetary loss.
Using the above example, deterrence theorists believe in two types of deterrence: specific and general. Specific deterrence is when one breaks the parking code and receives a $500 fine. The offender may have not conducted an accurate cost benefit analysis before choosing to commit crime and the vivid memory of monetary loss for breaking established code will alter the future behavior. The negative experience of the specific punishment (loss of $500) deters the individual from repeating the offense.
For specific deterrence to be true, criminology professors Shawn Bushway and Raymond Paternoster, argue that if specific deterrence occurs, two points must be met: “first, penalties that are imposed on an offender should increase the certainty and severity of punishment that the offender expects; second, the offender will refrain from criminal behavior as a result. Specific deterrence is illustrated from how common it is to see meter maids driving eye-catching vehicles with flashing lights while writing tickets and posting them on cars. This physical display underscores specific deterrence elements in that punishment is likely certain because it is observed for parking violations and will prevent future crime from occurring. Second, the punishment the offender expects is severe as illustrated through the exponential fine increase. The certain, swift and severe punishment of parking tickets in our penal code is to control and prevent this behavior from continuing.
The second strain of deterrence is general deterrence, and asserts that the mere existence of pain as a consequence of committing a crime will deter potential offenders from offending. General deterrence differs from specific in that if punishment is certain, one does not need to experience punishment to be aware of its certain inherent harm on one’s self. Individuals see crime’s imminent harm on an individual’s self-interest everywhere. American television is filled with shows centered on individuals committing violent, gruesome acts and their participation in the criminal justice system. Criminals are depicted in Oz, Prison Break, Law and Order, Alcatraz, the 7 o’clock news, and create the image that these acts are more commonplace, and in every case are caught and punished. General deterrence is readily found, and all one has to do is turn on the TV.
Kamala D. Harris, former District Attorney of San Francisco, furthers this culture claim in her book “Smart on Crime.” Deterrence is shown on television from the genesis of a crime, to conviction, and lastly, imprisonment. She comments against deterrence and the effects of deterrence on popular culture vs empirical evidence for children,
…many children today grow up in communities where they are surrounded by drug dealing and violence. Among other negative consequences, is that many of their relatives and role models have been in and out of prison for as long as they can remember. This child does not grow up with the idea in his or her head that prison is a horrible punishment; this child grows up with the notion that eventually everybody goes to prison- Uncle William, Cousin Alfred, my best friend’s dad who used to always buy me ice cream. It may not be a day at the beach or summer camp, but to these children, prison is a place where beloved men and sometimes women go for long or short periods of time. It has in some sense become normal. Normal is not a very good deterrent. (98).
Harris argues that deterrence and knowing the difference between right and wrong is widely available on television and in popular culture, but alters deterrence theory’s projected outcome when prison is common for adolescents’’ role models as seeing the flashing lights of meter maids. (not sure if clear)
The fear of participating in actions that trigger a punishment as a consequence alters our actions. In Do Prisons Make Us Safer?, Bushway and Paternoster state that “general deterrence claims that there is an inverse relationship between the objective properties of punishment and crime. For example, if state A punishes armed robbery with an average of prison sentence of five years, and state B punished armed robbery with an average prison sentence of three years, general deterrence would predict that there will be less armed robbery in state A than state B.” Essentially, deterrence argues that a community with a strict penal system correlates to less crime, compared to other communities with less strict punishments. If this were true, a test of general deterrence is to examine two countries where two people commit the same crime. The country with the more severe punishment would see less offenders of this crime than the other country.
In The Case Against Punishment, Deidre Golash argues that deterrence, as a whole is hard to prove because you cannot give quantitative data of crimes people do not commit. Yet, deterrence is the main tool utilized by our American Justice system. Golash argues that its inherent in human nature to preserve ones self interest of avoiding punishment but that punishment is not clear in the moment it occurs. In the example above, two criminals in different geographic regions would calculate the severity of the punishment before committing it in each respective location. Golash claims it is unreasonable to expect this type of behavior and humans do not possess that level of methodically planned rationale. She says that cigarette smoking and alcohol are excellent examples of this. People smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol for the immediate effects and are not deterred because what is the immediate harm? Humans, naturally, sway towards impulsivity and it is not innate in our behavior to plan long-term. If this is true, then deterrence theory, the prominent theory in American penal system, is inherently flawed in that why people commit crime in the first place is widely misunderstood.
Golash explains that there is no concrete evidence for deterrence theory because we can’t measure actions people don’t perform and there is no understanding behind why some offenders become habitual offenders and others do not. She says, “Most people have other reasons – such as reasons of conscience and effects on reputation- to refrain from committing such crimes. People who lack such reasons – who instead expect criminal behavior to enhance their reputations, or who are not deterred by pangs of conscience- may well be less responsive to punitive measures as well. ” This underscores Harris’ claim in an individual’s own definition of reputation as it is tied to crime and punishment could be vastly different in another’s. Fear is of punishment is desensitized to certain groups, such as youths who see the effects of imprisonment second hand.
On the other hand, O’Shea argues that deterrence functions on a larger scale that we cannot begin to quantify its effects with a macroscopic lens. He argues that it is undoubtedly true that humans avoid pains, such as loss of rights of imprisonment. He says, “Public policies implied by the neoclassical school are likely to be limited to and directed toward influencing the rational calculations of those predisposed to criminal behavior. Increase the costs of offending, and society thus reduces the likelihood of the offender’s choosing the offense option.” O’Shea explains that offenders and potential offenders must have previous knowledge of the extent of how crime is punished, and their crime specifically. (I don’t know how to incorporate this just yet)

Retributivist
Retributivist theories of punishment argue that punishment is just because it is deserved to the offender. This theory surrounds itself solely from an ethical standpoint, that the offender should take responsibility and accountability for their actions. Mark D. White, author of the book Retributivism, defines the term as, “the view that punishment is justified and motivated by considerations of justice, rights, and desert, rather than by personal or societal consequences…” Michael Davis, who during the 1980s wrote about retributivism when the theory was gaining prominence in theorist circles, says that retribution, although often seen next to each other, is different from restitution. Retribution, he says, “involves imposing a loss on the offender measured from the status quo ante. For example, a thief returning what was taken to the victim and reestablishing equilibrium is restitution. Taking enough from the thief so that what he is left with is less than what he had before the offense is reflective of retribution, tipping the scale towards the victim.”
R.A. Duff focuses on the communication aspect of this theory. He says punishment communicates disapproval to offenders, and offenders should receive harsh treatment because it is justified. Some scholars argue that implementing such harsh punishments is cruel and too far if the goal is simply to deter crime. Duff analyzes that the purpose of punishment is to “provoke certain types of emotion” such as guilt and anger. Whether these emotions stay self-directed and not outwardly directed, is a very delicate line of how the act of punishment itself is communicated. If the punishment is too severe, and the offender feels victimized by the extreme punishment, then the anger is more likely to be projected outward, possibly towards the community it feels ill-treated by. If the punishment is fair, then the relationship between the offender and recidivism could potentially diverge as the offender would more likely feel self-directed guilt and anger at oneself for actions wronging the community. Duff says, “whilst internal to censure is the intention, or hope, that the person censured will accept the censure as justified and will thus be motivated to avoid crime in future, this kind of account can avoid the charge (as brought against consequentialist theories) that it seeks to coerce or manipulate offenders into obeying the law.” At the end of the day, is the end goal of punishment to create a united governed population – to strengthen the relationship between wrongdoers and the community – or to ostracize wrongdoers from those who are law-abiding? Duff argues that retributivism theory fits in the latter category, and that a fair punishment focuses on directing oneself to “keep his attention focused on what he has done, and to provide a structure within which he can face up to his wrongdoing and on what he must to do avoid its repetition.”
Furthering Duff’s argument on punishment serving as a vehicle for communication, some scholars debate that retributivism structure also simplifies highly complex issues. Although retributivism does rely on individualism in that the punishment must be proportional to the crime committed by the individual, Christ Cunneen argues the theory is more universalist. He says retributivism, “simplifies what is in reality a highly complex set of social, political, and cultural relations in which justice and particularly punishment are embedded… makes it more difficult to understand how the law operates through civil society.” Per Cunneen, we must have a deeper foundational understanding why people commit crime and underscores the ideas represented in rehabilitation, which creates a more inclusive relationship between wrongdoers and the community, as outlined below.

Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation in the modern definition of the term, began in the late 19th century and gained popularity from the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformative Discipline in 1870. The conference stipulated declarations to improve upon the penal system. These included, “the establishment of adult reformatories, in conjunction with (1) the indeterminate sentence, (2) a mark/classification system, (3) intensive academic and vocational instruction, (4) constructive labor, (5) humane disciplinary methods, and (6) parole.” Probation was born during this time with John Augustus, a shoemaker, who “personally posted bail and served as a guardian to approximately two thousands offenders.”
The above-mentioned points underscore the numerous social conditions steering people to commit crime. These include having an absent parent, socio-economic status, education, mental disease, amongst other data points. Rehabilitation understands the various motivations for committing crime and offers social programs with the goal of decreasing the likelihood of recommitting crime. These programs include psychotherapy, vocational and educational training, and are available to offenders inside and outside of prison. Rehabilitation programs hope to counsel people away from their need and inclination to commit crime and focuses on the offender’s individual conditions and requires analysis of motivating factors. The process functions to alter the psychological proclivity to commit crime.
In Why Punish, How Much, Francis Allen highlights how the use of psychiatry to steer rehabilitation policies varies with new scientific developments arising everyday. He agrees that humans are by nature, reactive, in that we are all products of “antecedent causes” and that is it the “obligation of the scientist to discover and to describe them with all possible exactitude. Knowledge of the antecedents of human behavior makes possible an approach to the scientific contro¬l of human behavior” (98). He believes that the science of psychiatry has limited data points and is very much open to various interpretations on how to rehabilitate a certain population. He says, “the language of therapy” can be used “to disguise the true state of affairs that prevail in our custodial institutions and at other points in the correctional process.” Allen thinks that some measures can be put forward on the merit of rehabilitation, when really, it can be very detrimental. Allen recounts a visit to a juvenile institution focusing on disturbed children, which was enthusiastically promoted by its respective state legislature with the merit of fostering new advances for helping children. A supervising psychiatrist was lecturing the group on the “custodial problems” and in order to combat the issue, gave a “euphemistic label for a cell solitary confinement” and how that was used in its treatment of children.
Allen asserts that rehabilitation and the use of psychiatry to better understand the offending population can indeed boast new levels of understanding aimed at decreasing crime. At the same time, the science of psychiatry can have a wide margin in varied interpretations and therefore there is a high importance in exercising caution when using psychiatry as a chief instrument in steering rehabilitation policies.
An important note is that rehabilitation does utilize outside stakeholders and broadens the punishment dialogue previously reserved for two parties: the government communicating punishment policies and the offender. More members of the community are included through the use of therapy, education, vocational training, and other rehabilitative efforts. These people include teachers, therapists, and probation workers. The level of accountability is spread over varied groups of people and gives the offender additional data points of accountability for their actions, which provides additional motives to conform to rehabilitation policies. Theoretically, rehabilitation policies bring the offender closer to the community and policy makers through creating a more inclusive relationship amongst the three stakeholders in unified self-preservation.
Some scholars argue that it is completely up to the offender to be willing to rehabilitate, and that offering rehabilitation to offenders unwilling to reform will not deter them from changing their innate criminal inclinations. Vivian Stern, in A Sin Against the Future, states that rehabilitation is not always effective because “most programmes of seemingly rehabilitative value have very little effect on whether or not a prisoner gets into further trouble outside… no one can force another human being to be rehabilitated. Change has to come from within…” A method for persuading change, Stern argues, is to change how inmates are treated while incarcerated. She says, “…cruelty is forbidden, because that will not bring out the good in people. So are violence and brutality. Humiliation is not acceptable. Pointless labor such as dismantling old electricity cables that no one will use is out. Prisoners cannot be paraded in front of the public. Chain gangs are contrary to the rehabilitative ideal…rights [need to be] respected.” Stern asserts that rehabilitation policies can have a positive effect, but there needs to be a certain environment structured in order for these policies to be fruitful. Those incarcerated, where civil liberties have already been taken away, are positioned at the start of incarceration to reject rehabilitation. Inmates will be more accepting of rehabilitation if they are in an environment where they feel respected, treated humanely, and given purpose with rights that are respected.
In Punishment in America, Cyndi Banks, an associate professor of criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, discusses America’s current use of rehabilitation. She argues that America had full public support of rehabilitation, but in the 1970s and onward, America shifted its perspective towards other methods, such as incapacitation, deterrence, and retributivism, and rehabilitation has been on the decline. Today, our legislatures responsible for creating our penal code do not all agree on the potential for rehabilitation. Senator Denton Darrington from Idaho, a legislator who directly impacts prison laws and regulations, believes that people in prison for drug offenses should be given treatment, but those who supply them to misguided youths should be given harsh punishments. He says, “There is another group of people in Idaho prisons for drug offenses who are not dopers, they are entrepreneurs. They don’t need treatment. They are dangerous and need punishment… We’re not putting people in prison for smoking a joint, but because they supplied the dope that destroyed young people’s and adults’ lives. That’s fair.” Senator Darrington illustrates the inherent flaw in our penal system that rehabilitation requires – inclusion of the offending party. By singling out a certain demographic that Darrington has deemed undeserving of rehabilitation programs, further distances offenders from policy makers that enforces negative dialogue between the two parties. Revisiting Duff’s importance on how communication affects inward and outwards emotions associated with being punished, Darrington’s stance on limiting rehabilitating programs to specific offenders promotes outwardly directed emotions of guilt and anger versus inward. Senator Darrington’s interpretation of rehabilitation in our penal code illustrates the progression of rehabilitation culturally and how this can provide a mix on policies that are affecting the inside of prisons today. It should be noted that Senator Darrington is not alone in thinking that rehabilitation programs can culturally be seen as a reward for committing crime. Rush Limbaugh, for example, is quoted for saying, “There’s a simple way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish those who do not.” Limbaugh and Senator Darrington provide important accounts of how rehabilitation policies can have a great impact on rehab programs and how they can be easily fragmented by (de)funding, reserved for certain groups, and affecting the narrative between the penal code, offenders, and community members.

Incapacitation
It is notable that one of the predominant forms of punishment in America today does not fall under any of these classical theories, but a new invention of the justice system. Incapacitation, disallowing offenders to have the capacity to further commit crime, uses prison as place to quarantine offenders they deem liable to reoffend. California’s Three Strikes law, where if an offender after deemed guilty of a third offense, is sentenced to life in prison, is an example of incapacitation. Three Strikes could be argued that comes from the deterrence playbook, but there is a stark difference in how it looks at an offender. Whitley Kauffman, Professor at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, states that although the common denominator is the prevention of future crime, but that incapacitation “entails giving up on a member of society, treating him as a wild animal that needs to be caged but that cannot hope to re-enter society as a rational being.” The underlying difference is that hope is distilled within the other theories –deterrence, retributivism and rehabilitation– where the offender will be released back into society on the hopes they will not want to or have the need to be punished again. The unilateral dialogue that the American political system constructs for inmates is particularly important when we explore the ______________ (something about inmates and their want to reform because of their inclusion in political dialogue on penal policy?).
Interestingly, Kaufman asserts that a reason why incapacitation has been so widely accepted is that is not particularly associated with “liberal or conservative programs.” Through its exponential growth in penal policy, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kaufman says, “the current consensus is that the current system of punishment has, if anything, an anti-rehabilitative effect, hardening prisoners into a life of ever more crime rather than the opposite.” We can infer from incapacitation that Americans who have committed crime more than 3 offences, statistically have a zero percent chance of reformation.

Statement of Research and Method
Methodology
My research combines scholarly literature and case studies focusing on methods of punishment and its link to recidivism. Additionally, I incorporate my own research of interviewing prison professionals. In order to grasp the foundations of our prison system, I concentrated on published works about different penal theories. I surveyed scholars to find uniformity on which theories proved to be the most effective. Second, I focused on historical trends in the United States and how the theories have been represented over time, in addition to the use of different penal theories and its affect of inmate population levels. The historical aspect also served as a foundation for understanding the roots of the difficulties of the current prison system, and the relationships of communication between the offender, the community, and the legislature.
I also focused on case studies surrounding the role prisons play on recidivism, and what differentiates the success and failure for parolees. One case study conducted by Bahr, Harris, Fisher, and Armstrong, followed 51 parolees for three years, and gives understanding on how effective prison resources are, and what elements keep parolees connected to the community.
I present my own empirical research through a comparative case study on Norwegian prisons, Bastoy and ____, and an American prison, _____. The comparative model functioned to show different incarceration structures and their effects on the incarcerated populations, in addition to their projected societal roles once released. I chose Norway and America because they show the theoretical extremes, where Norway focuses on reintegration and America focuses on deterrence and retributive models. I strove to find concrete, physical examples that brought to light the conditions of prisons, such as security, cells, food, relationship and communication with prison staff, in addition to the importance these prisons placed on resources given while incarcerated, like education and vocational skills.
In addition to historical, sociological, psychological, and theoretical literature research, I conducted interviews with prison staff members. I talked to a probation officer in San Francisco, a maximum-security prison psychiatrist, and a female Norwegian prison guard. The subjects were interviewed using the following general guiding thoughts:
1. The role that prison staff plays in the measures geared toward reintegration into society
2. The physical description of prisons themselves, since every prison is different and it is an institution closed to the public
3. Their thoughts on their hope of the system and whether inmates have the capacity to change while incarcerated (in any system)
4. Reasons on how to better their respective system
These guiding questions helped me better understand the most foreign institution. One can read all the literature in the world, but still not fully grasp the hurdles prison staff members have to overcome, like following legal bureaucratic measures.
Interpretive Lens
I first became interested in incarceration while working on a juvenile delinquency and prevention commission for Santa Cruz County in my teens. Then, during my undergraduate degree, I sought after classes concerned with the link between sociology, law, and prisons. From my personal history, I had preconceived notions regarding the American prison system’s shortcomings, and how it has failed to comprehensively evaluate recidivism. It is especially important to note that around 60% of the current incarcerated population will at some point return to prison. With that, I am looking at this topic through an economical lens, because lowering recidivism will lower government costs, or your tax dollars, on each individual incarcerated.
Challenges/Goal
My goal is to understand what elements are key in preventing people from committing crime on a habitual basis. My finding is that recidivism relies on the communication between the offender, the local community, and the government, who serves as an authoritarian figure. What greatly reduces the chances of an offender from reoffending is the positive communication between the offender and the community. My goal is to find the three greatest differences that can strengthen bond between the offender and community that would ultimately lower recidivism.
I acknowledge that my basis of finding these programs comes from pulling models from very dissimilar countries. The largest impediment is that Norway looks nothing like the United States. Norway is a homogenous society whereas the United States has grown up on the foundations of multiculturalism and therefore very heterogeneous. How hundreds of different cultures and ethnicities blend together within the confines of the United States proves to be a unique study and creates different variables on what can be successfully implemented in the penal system. I am more interested in Norway’s political dialogue with its population and whether that conversation has the power to be a change agent to alter the behavior of a large group of individuals.
Overall, I should note that I do not believe that Norway is a utopian society that America can mimic entirely. There are principals that Norway utilizes and if we implement them, they can actually look very different. With that said, America needs to analyze successful outside models of punishment in order to inspire change within our dismally failing penal system.

Body
America has been the epicenter of efficiency, perfecting systems that other nations have adopted as a model to develop their respective systems, with industrial manufacturing, the internet and the credit system being some of the most recognized. American ideological roots have been shown to propagate in other countries and it therefore becomes even more crucial to understand our penal system and the effects it has on not only on an individual level, but the communities at large, because it has a much larger global influence. At the same time, although American prisons have developed into efficient machines, such as providing the basic needs for mass quantities, we have moved away from focusing on long term results. According to the National Institute of Justice, within five years of release, about 76.6% of released prisoners were rearrested in 2005. Further, of those prisoners who were rearrested, 56.7% were arrested by the end of the first year. Interestingly, type of crime committed does not have a great influence on one’s proclivity on committing another crime with rate of recidivism ranging from 71.3%-82.1%. The National Institute of Justice cites that “property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1% of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with 76.9% of drug offenders, 73.6% of public order offenders and 71.3% of violent offenders.”
What can we take away from these statistics? That our justice system is directly failing a large population and has an immense indirect influence globally. Abrupt change needs to occur in order to lower our crime rates and we must now look at how other justice systems function in order to perfect our own. Other countries, such as those in the Scandinavian region, have actually shifted more towards rehabilitation as opposed to deterrence. Norway, in particular, believes in amenities and luxuries, and treats their inmates as patients in a rehabilitation center. Bastoy, A Norwegian prison, illustrates an extreme rehabilitation and reintegration model. In this prison, offenders live on a commune and live in houses that simulate the real world. The Norwegian prison system believes that other approaches toughen up criminals and actually breeds more crime than to prevent it from occurring in the future. Prison guards are characterized as amicable and many prisons employ female guards. This ideal is also underscored in the penal code, where the maximum sentence is 21 years for every type of crime, including murder.
The Norwegian justice system has proven to be effective. An article states, “an extensive new study undertaken by researchers across all the Nordic countries reveals that the reoffending average across Europe is about 70-75 per cent. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the average is 30 per cent. In Norway it is 20 per cent. Thus Bastoy, at just 16 per cent, has the lowest reoffending rate in Europe.”
This paper first seeks to estimate the current American system through analyzing the direction punishment has taken historically and the repercussions of those decisions stemming from the 1960s. Tracing our steps from the past century shows the existence of a divide between the population and those who commit crime, and important in understanding our current system today through its evolution. The role of the state is reflected through the standards installed by society. Second, an analysis of the Norwegian prison system will prove to illuminate distinct features that have shown to be successful. A comparison between the two will serve as a tool to discover which features can be integrated in the current American system.
Key Points in American Penological History
In the 1870s to the 1930s, America saw exponential population increases due to immigration. People amassed in cities where there were ample job opportunities. The cities, however, became “afflicted with poverty, disease, overcrowded slums, and crime” and called for stronger regulatory bodies. The American government invested in science and developed systematic approaches in response to rising urban needs. In doing so, America moved into the Progressive Era and in effect formed the welfare state.
The prison system inherited this shift in ideology, and can be traced from the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformative Discipline in 1870. Thomas Bloomberg and Karol Lucken, professors of Criminology and Criminal Justice, respectively, say the conference asserted, “Isolation, lockstep marching, and striped uniforms debilitated one’s manhood.” Instead, the conference stipulated certain conditions that would serve to improve the overall system. These included, “the establishment of adult reformatories, in conjunction with (1) the indeterminate sentence, (2) a mark/classification system, (3) intensive academic and vocational instruction, (4) constructive labor, (5) humane disciplinary methods, and (6) parole.” Probation was also created during this time by John Augustus, a shoemaker, who “personally posted bail and served as a guardian to approximately two thousands offenders.” America kept a rehabilitative position until the 1920s, where crime rates increased and people began to call into question the reformative structure in place. In “Punishment in the American Democracy: The Paradoxes of Good Intentions,” Dario Melossi and Mark Lettiere describe the physical change in prisons during this time. They say, “Its architecture was foreboding, as tiers of massive concrete and steel cells and other features like the wall and the yard, told of the Big House’s fortress-like quality.” Prison culture also began to emerge, where the classic images of inmates in black and white striped jumpsuits engraved slashes on walls to represent days incarcerated, and appeared in films in the 1940s. Prisons function as a vehicle for deterrence, and America perpetuated this philosophy through the next few decades.
In the 1960s, Americans were starkly conservative on their views of crime while experiencing political assassinations, violence within the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. George Winslow, journalist and author of the book Capital Crimes, says Richard Nixon used this sentiment to advantageously push a conservative agenda. In effect, this “allowed conservatives to pursue a draconian law-and-order crackdown on street crime while simultaneously attacking government programs designed to address the social causes of crime…” Melossi and Lettiere argue that the 1960s-70s exhibit Durkheim’s theory that “social change breeds anomie… ceteris paribus, there will probably be an increase in deviant activities…There will be an effort by the elites attached to the cultural values and to the material advantages of the old order, to defend it by reestablishing their legitimacy through the use of all available means of social control.” Essentially, there are values inherited through generations. In the 1950s, you have an era focused on a consensus culture and suburban ideals. The political turmoil through the following decades challenged people’s views of conventional roles and created anxiety through this generation. The political turmoil bred deviant activity.
Political changes have a great value in understanding criminology, proving to manifest the implicit dialogue between how different communities, and even different generations, identify each other. The progressive era had a heightened need for social assistance. Americans saw themselves on equal playing fields – everyone was affected by the Great Depression, where the majority needed government aid. The positive dialogue between authority figures or the government with the community, such as providing financial aid, trickled down to offenders who felt unified with the community at large.
In the 1960s, politicians created class divisions through highlighting dissimilarities between ‘career criminals’ and those who do not commit crime, instilling fear as a method of winning votes. The friction between those commit crime and the community functioned to unify politicians with the latter group, and the legislature was then able to popularize the ‘tough on crime’ sentiment. In this sense, I qualify Durkheim’s theory and assert that social control was a product of this marginalization, but its primary function was to appeal to the masses and ultimately, a larger voting pool.
Fran Buntman, professor of sociology at George Washington University explains, “Dostoevsky, Mandela, and other have long noted that prisons expose social realities, often hidden, particularly inequality and gaps between policy and practice. Prisons symbolize, mirror, and shape the communities and countries in which they exist… Policies and practices of imprisonment reflect social order, especially structures of inequality and understandings of legitimate power and opposition.” Prisons are indicative of a larger problem of how we view and interpret social issues. The transition from the 1950s to 1960s proves to show how there was a rupture in the relationship between society and the government, where people were confused about the evolution of societal roles. What did it now mean to be a citizen when so many people were questioning the government’s legitimacy, and were accustomed to a consensus culture? The social order’s lack of harmony was due to communities not being as secure as they were a decade earlier, and this was eventually symbolized through the prison system.
[Insert key historical points representing the 1980s/90s]
The evolution of dialogue surrounding punishment in America has shown of the disassociation Americans have with those whom they do not closely identify with. Richard Sparks, Professor of criminology at Keele University, underscores this sentiment, “The political reaction of the 1980s and 1990s has shaped the public perception of these troubling issues, persuading us to think of them as problems of control rather than welfare…[as caused by] the irresponsible behavior of a dangerous and undeserving underclass- people who abused the new freedoms and made life impossible for the rest of us.” This idea brings us to our current state of affairs, and is illustrated by our legislators. Senator Denton Darrington from Idaho, who makes decisions that directly impact prisons, believes only certain inmates deserve rehabilitation. He says that people incarcerated for drug offences should be given treatment, but those who supply them to misguided youths should be given harsh punishments. He says, “There is another group of people in Idaho prisons for drug offenses who are not dopers, they are entrepreneurs. They don’t need treatment. They are dangerous and need punishment… We’re not putting people in prison for smoking a joint, but because they supplied the dope that destroyed young people’s and adults’ lives. That’s fair.” This is an example of tough on crime approach, where Darrington believe that this group of individuals abused their freedoms and made life impossible for the rest of Americans, and is therefore a problem of controlling their social behavior through punishment.
The American Prison Model
The inside of the prison is a reflection of how society sees inmates. In an interview with psychiatrist Mark Young, whom works at the Folsom State Prison in California, describes the inside of it as “dark, concrete, and a very depressing place to be.” Louis Theroux, a British man writes about a jail in Miami and shares a similar experience. He says:
The place has to be seen to be believed. Up to 24 inmates are crowded into a single cell, living behind metal bars on steel bunks, sharing a single shower and two toilets. Little of the bright Miami sun filters through the grilles on the windows. Visits to the yard happen twice a week for an hour. The rest of the time, inmates are holed up round the clock, eating, sleeping, and going slightly crazy.
Dr. Young, whose profession is based on the idea that rehabilitation has an affect on the inmate population, believes it has become the least important objective in our system. He explains the different populations within the prison and describes a special group called administrative segregation, or ‘ad seg’. These people are in a prison within a prison, the “most unpredictable, obnoxious, uncooperative group of people.” He says many of them are kept in isolation, single cell, and when psychologists try to see them, they are put in chains, handcuffs, etc. He says, “You have the worst [cases], where they are locked up to protect other prisoners, so we’re going to punish them, and [as a society] we don’t care how much they suffer… this makes them much worse when they’re locked up by themselves.”
Not only are the physical conditions draining on inmates, Dr. Young describes how many inmates have the emotional capacity of twelve-year-old, where “they have very little coping skills.” Dr. Young notes that this group is especially in need of psychiatric care, yet ironically have a harder time accessing the resource. Oftentimes, he says, “Sometimes when [correctional officers] say [inmates] refuse [to be seen by a therapist or psychiatrist], the guards say they refuse, but they really didn’t. You don’t know if it’s [the inmate] or the guards.” The correctional officers have a large role to play in the dynamics of the prison yet are not positive influences. Dr. Young notes that of the correctional officers, “half of them are hostile.”
When describing the jail he visited, Theroux says that the inmates are “living like animals” and that they “had lost their grip on social norms.” This brings to an interesting point, if correctional facilities are so detached from social norms, how do we expect inmates to react when they are released back into society?
Other countries have answered this question by departing from the American model of punishment. Norway, for example, built Halden prison in 2010 that has been described as “plush” and “the most humane prison.” The facility took ten years and an equivalent of $252 million USD in order to house those who have committed the worst offenses, like murder and rape. $252 million USD is a high price to pay for humane treatment, however California alone spent $8.795 billion in the 2007 fiscal year on corrections and the number exponentially increases each year.
The Norwegian Prison Model
Norway, along with other Scandinavian countries such as Finland and Sweden, has a large number of small prisons. These facilities function differently compared to American standards. According to the Global Post, all inmates start their sentences in traditional ‘closed’ prisons. They can then apply to be in an ‘open’ prison, which serves as “inducements for good behavior and an opportunity towards the end of long sentences to prepare for release. Between 14 and 20 per cent of referrals to open prisons are recalled to closed institutions for breaches of the rules each year.”
Norway has not always had such an emphasis on reintegration. [Insert history of Norwegian prison system] (see article#1, page 4)
“The more secure facilities share some of the ills their American counterparts are known for, including high drug abuse, lack of education and job opportunities, which means most detainees spend 23 out of 24 hours locked in their cells,” according to the Global Post. Even so, the atmosphere of the prison itself is very different. John Pratt, who studies Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian prison systems for their remarkably low crime rates, says that Norwegian closed prisons are still very comfortable. “What strikes any visitor familiar with Anglo-American prisons is the personal space and relative material comfort for most prisoners… Prisoners have televisions in their cells, usually state provided… internal sanitation… Outside of maximum security conditions, movement within the prisons is relatively relaxed.” Inmates also will have their own room, where, as Pratt explains, “Double bunking is quite uncommon.” One observer explains, “It feels like an open prison, even if it is officially a closed one.”
‘Open’ prisons, on the other hand, do not have bars on rooms, high security locks, tall electric fences, nor wear bright orange jumpsuits. Instead, inmates are assigned jobs or go to school and are allowed to leave the facilities to go into the towns. Leonard Baer and Bodil Ravnberg discuss the degree of openness in open facilities. They state, “Prisons have become more open to the public in general as well as for social science researchers.” Norwegians assert that if prisons are more open, and simulate the outside world, then adjusting back once free from incarceration will pave a smoother road for transition. Baer and Ravnberg describe the prison, “I feel that the atmosphere is like the outside. In the teacher’s room, the prisoners come and go as they please, using the telephone or sitting on the sofa, talking or reading a newspaper. Here I feel as if the surroundings are just like outside. ”
Baer and Ravnberg focus their case study on the dualities between the prison world and the outside, based on Francis Foucault’s work on heterotopia. [insert Foucault’s quote on heterotopia] Heterotopia they explain, are real places that have a mirror effect on society, and especially relate to prisons because “confinement cuts through every aspect of society.” Heterotopia applies to the Norwegian system of incarceration because it truly represents society’s understanding of those who commit crime. Prisons present a phenomenon where inmates are so disconnected from the outside world. Norway still maintains closed prisons, however open prisons serve as a point of transition. [expand on heterotopia and its relation]
Two examples of ‘open’ prisons are Halden, as previously mentioned, and Bastoy. Halden was strategically built to avoid feeling like inmates were incarcerated and separated from the outside world. Designers chose big windows to allow for more sunlight to be let in and make it feel like an apartment setting, where every ten cells share a living room and kitchen. In the journal Corrections Forum, Keith Strandberg asserts that this does not equate to a luxury prison. He says, “Sure, the cells have flat screen TVs and other modern amenities, but if you are building a new prison, of course you’re not going to use outdated technology.” The use of this structure of housing is because many of the inmates, “the activities of normal life have been challenging, so they have not been able to live their lives…to teach them how to keep their apartment is very basic, but many inmates don’t have this skill,” says Strandberg.
The Halden prison model emphasizes relationships and community dependence as shown through the interactions of inmates and correctional officers. Correctional officers wear a uniform, but not in military style, and also do not carry guns. Architect Per Hojgaard Nielson says, “Many prisoners come from bad homes, so we wanted to create a sense of family.” The facility also employs many women, over half, as correctional officers so as to not create a hostile environment.
[Insert 2 paragraphs from interview with Synne, a female prison guard. Interviewed 11/1/11 ]
Andreas Skullberg, the Deputy Director General of the Correctional Services Department in Norway, describes his correctional officers, “they are very optimistic and think people can change. If you present a pessimistic view to a prisoner, he will also be pessimistic.”
The Norwegian system also stresses the importance of maintaining preexisting community ties with inmates. According to Pratt, inmates are incarcerated at close proximities to their homes. This allows inmates to maintain relationships with family members. Pratt says, “Given the extensive geographical areas of these countries, this form of prison organization allows most prisoners (unless they are maximum-security classification) to be fairly close to home and family. This fits the ethos of Scandinavian prison management, which is one of normalization, most clearly stated in the Finnish Sentences Enforcement Act of 2002… punishment is a mere loss of liberty.” The deputy director general of the Correctional Services Department, Skulberg, says that Norway follows this idea of regionalism so that “their support system is in place as much as possible.” Norway also rarely sentences imprisonment to drug addicts, for fear of disrupting their balance at home. “It is considered uncivilized to hold women in cells away from their families, so judges tend towards community punishment,” according to a British Times article. Conjugal visits are not only accepted, but are encouraged. “Most prisons (high security especially) provide accommodation where partners and children can stay free of charge for weekends- usually at monthly intervals- with the prisoners on an unsupervised basis.”
Following the mentality of only losing their right to liberty, Norwegian inmates are allowed to vote and participate in public policy measures regarding prisons. “Social distance within these prison systems seems relatively short, allowing prisoners to have direct input into prison governance… [they] are included in yearly ‘meeting in the mountains,’ where prison policy is worked through and determined by all interested parties.” Specifically, there was an initiative to build a 1,000 bed prison in Oslo. Senior legislators, prison staff members, academics and prisoner rights groups all met and discussed the proposal, where it was eventually turned down. The overall consensus is that depriving inmates the right to liberty is sufficient punishment enough, and alienating them from society by depriving them of civil liberties will only hurt the public over time.
[insert paragraph about job placement and vocational skills learned while incarcerated]
In terms of public policy, Norway does not have the death penalty in their corrections code and their maximum sentence is 21 years, irrelevant to the degree of their crime. Judges can, however, can keep an inmate incarcerated for long if they feel that society is strongly threatened. Therefore, Norwegian society is forced into developing different ideologies on how they view prisoners because they will realistically one day be reintegrated into society. And they truly believe in this concept. Arnfinn Nesset, a former nurse, killed 22 patients, only served 22 years and was released in 2004.
Pratt calls this Scandinavian exceptionalism, which is defined by “low rates of imprisonment and humane prison conditions,” and has been caused by their egalitarian culture. It is through the egalitarian culture that everyone feels attached to one another and therefore feel it inappropriate to punish a neighbor so harshly. In an interview with a prison governor, or our equivalent of a warden, Arne Kvernvik Nilsen explains, “Both society and the individual simply have to put aside their desire for revenge, and stop focusing on prisons as places of punishment and pain. Depriving a person of their freedom for a period of time is sufficient punishment in itself without any need whatsoever for harsh prison conditions.” An employee of one of the open prisons, Bastoy, summarizes Norwegian society’s sentiments, “I think most Norwegians increasingly realize that closed prisons are the old fashioned way of dealing with criminals and that in terms of rehabilitation they simply don’t work.”
What Can America Implement?
The key to Norway’s prison model is the consistent, positive dialogue maintained between inmates, prison staff, the community, and politicians. This achieved through the reward system of an open prison and amenities, employment while incarcerated, the architecture of the prison that promotes face-to-face contact, and the emphasis of political participation, such as voting. Although these ideas would translate differently in the American system, there are basic principals that we can implement that would affect recidivism.
–include interview with folsom prison staff member
Promote Amenities as a Reward System
-Weight rooms (confidence building), television, open prison reward system
-proven to promote good behavior
Employ Inmates While Incarcerated
-I understand the main argument against this is there is no need for industrial labor, however, the system was doomed to fail because of mandatory sourcing regulations. We need to lift interstate regulations (Sumners-Ashurst Act, Walsh-Healy Act)
 proved to be the most effective for reducing recidivism, so something we need to invest in. providing better machinery/equipment can prove to save money over time. (See case study, “Preventing Parolees From Returning to Prison Through Community-Based Reintegration” Zhang, Roberts, Callanan// “Successful Reentry” Bahr et al. // Life on the Outside: Returning Home After Incarceration” Visher and Travis
-The Nation: The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor
-Factories Behind Fences: Do Prison ‘Real Work’ Programs work?
-Correctional Industies preparing inmates for re-entry: Recidivism & post release employment
Promote Human Interaction Between Staff and Inmates
-no solitary confinement
-architecture of prisons
-the control of inmate movement
Disenfranchisement
-46 states have criminal disenfranchisement laws that deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison.
-32 states disenfranchise felons on parole
-29 states “ “ on probation
-14 states banned from voting for life
-this creates political outcasts and further marginalizes this community and breaks ties
Sources:
–Criminal Disenfranchisement Reform in CA, Case study by Campbell
–Collateral Consequences of a Collateral Penalty: The Negative Effect of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws on the Political Participation of Nonfelons
–BBC: Convicts ‘will not all get vote’

Conclusion
My finding is that our deteriorating system stems from societal inequalities. Toqueville stated that American democracy was so strong because of the relationship between liberty and equality.

Works Cited (not complete list)
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