Normality behind the Walls: Examples from Halden Prison
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Normality behind the Walls: Examples from
Halden Prison
ARE HOIDAL
Governor, Halden
Prison
I. The Correctional Turmoil of the 1980s and 1990s
The principle of normality-the idea that life inside prison
should be as dose as possible to life in the community-is
one of the cornerstones of the modern Norwegian correc-
tional system. However, Norway's current and successful
implementation of a correctional environment focused on
normality and humane effectiveness in corrections is a rel-
atively recent development. These policies were first
employed in response to serious challenges that mirrored
those still observed in other Western countries today. To
understand where things are today in Norway, it is there-
fore essential to consider some recent history.
Created in 1980,' the Norwegian Correctional Service
(NCS) is a national-level governmental agency responsible
for the execution of all criminal sentences and pretrial
detentions in Norway. Its first decade was characterized by
multiple challenges. For example, a major recidivism study
conducted by Statistics Norway, in which sentenced offen-
ders were followed for five years after their sentence ended,
showed that 63% of those given unconditional prison
sentences' reoffended within five years of being released.
For persons with three or more previous sentences, the re-
offense rate was closer to 8o%.3
Violence often characterized the prison environment
during the early days of NCS. On March 4, 1989, a female
prison officer at Ila Prison in Oslo was killed by an inmate
during a temporary leave from prison to visit the cinema. In
December 1991, another prison officer was killed in
Sarpsborg Prison. Investigations followed both incidents,
and new restrictions were put in place to increase the safety
of correctional officers.4 The natural consequence for
inmates was that their daily lives became more restricted.
Crime trends in the 198os were also characterized by
changes in overall crime rates and in the types of offenses
committed. This, in turn, meant that the composition of the
prison population changed. Drug abuse had become
a major problem in society overall, and this development
was reflected in the prison climate. The use of drugs also
increased inside prison walls, organized crime became
more common, and several prisons experienced riots and
attempted escapes. HIV and AIDS also became a major
health concern during this period. Taken together, these
factors led the government to see an urgent need to
toughen the prison policy at the time. In 1988 they
drafted a new bill, which stated:
Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 31, No. i, pp. 58-66, ISSN 1053-9867, electronic ISSN 1533-8363.
© 2018 Vera Institute of Justice. All rights reserved. Please direct requests for permission to photocopy
or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page,
http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: https://doi.org/lo.I525/fsr.2oi8.31.I.58.
FEDERAL SENTENCING REPORTER * VOL. 31, NO. 1 * OCTOBER 2018
58
Prison policy should have the following starting
points:
* The core of the prison sentence should be the dep-
rivation of liberty.
* The security inside and outside prisons should be
given the highest priority.
* It is necessary to fight the drug problem in our
pnsons.
Differentiation is a key word in this context. Early
release, temporary leaves, parole, etc. should, to
a larger extent than today, be a reward for inmates
who demonstrate that they are motivated to desist
from crime.5
After parliamentary approval, the result of this legislation
was a direct increase in the number of security measures
within, and financial support for, NCS. This directly trans-
lated to the hiring of an additional 200 correctional officers.
This increase in staffing Was explained as follows:
In recent years there has been a significant change in
the prison population due to changes in the crime
trends. There is an increasing number of inmates
who serve long sentences for violence and drug
crimes, and it is an increasing number of inmates
who suffer from major mental disorders. Drug abuse
in prisons has also increased, the same goes for cases
of violence against officers. On top of this [NCS] have
to handle the HIV/AIDS problem. Both the compo-
sition of the prison population and these other pro-
blems have changed dramatically over a few years,
without the staff being increased accordingly.6
As was the case with the number of drug users under
the supervision of NCS, the increase in the number of
inmates with mental health issues can be linked to parallel
changes in Norwegian health policies. On July 1, 1987, the
Parliament closed a large psychiatric hospital, Reitgjerdet,
in Trondheim. This facility had been the subject of con-
tinuous criticism regarding the conditions at the hospital
and the extensive use of force by staff. At that time, many of
the patients at Reitgjerdet were convicts who were serving
their sentences in the mental institution because they were
considered by a court to lbe psychotic or had other severe
mental disorders that prevented their incarceration in](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/fedsen31&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Normality behind the Walls: Examples from Halden Prison
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