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31 Fed. Sent'g Rep. 58 (2018-2019)
Normality behind the Walls: Examples from Halden Prison

handle is hein.journals/fedsen31 and id is 60 raw text is: 




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

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