Thread by @glennEmartin

Before I depart Norway for the USA, I wanted to share some thoughts. I am thankful to @ARrow4Justice for the opportunity to join this trip. First, the German and Norwegian systems are rooted in the concept of rehabilitation & seek to help people...

...reintegrate into society, while the US system is primarily punitive & focused on punishment & deterrence. One of the primary differences between the systems is the length of sentences. In the US, prison sentences are longer than those in Norway and Germany...

...with many people receiving life sentences without the possibility of parole. In contrast, the systems I visited this week place a greater emphasis on rehabilitation, & sentences are generally shorter, with the possibility of parole after 2/3rds of the sentence has been served.

Another major difference is the physical design of the prisons. German & Norwegian prisons are often designed to resemble small communities, with a range of facilities and services available, including libraries, workshops, recording studios, and sports facilities.

The idea is to create an environment that fosters personal development & self-improvement. In contrast, many US prisons are overcrowded & lack basic facilities, such as access to education & healthcare. The treatment of ppl is another area where the systems differ significantly.

In Germany and Norway, people in prison are treated with dignity & respect. In the US, ppl in prison are often subjected to degrading treatment & are sometimes treated as subhuman. They are frequently denied access to basic healthcare, education, and mental health services.

In Germany and Norway, the primary objective is to rehabilitate & help ppl reintegrate into society as productive citizens. In the US, the primary objective is to punish & deter others from committing crimes. As a result, the recidivism rate here is much lower than in the US.

I am not naive. I know that it's virtually impossible for US prisons to ever fully resemble these sorts of prisons. I am also acutely aware that our prisons are meant to punish the people that Americans hate the most: Black, brown, and poor people. But, I am also not fatalistic.

If someone doesn't explore and dream of what a more equitable justice system looks like, then the future of punishment in the US will be certain. More pain. More suffering. More victimization. More inequity. Europeans have their enemies: Black people. Brown people. Immigrants.

But the words "human dignity," came up over 70 times on this trip (I counted), & mostly from the prison guards. Whether you change the prison facility, add cooking classes, let ppl make music, or play sports...if all we achieved was grace & human dignity for people who have...

...wronged us, then we will have made progress. Next stop, USA.

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky