But they're not Norwegians!!!

 

As a former prison chaplain, with a fair amount of experience in dealing with US inmates (including the most dangerous, high-security variety), I was flabbergasted to read this report.

As part of [prison] reforms, which are based on Norway’s model, California’s prisons are moving away from punishment and toward rehabilitation, education, and re-entry.

The transformation dovetails with a decade of sentencing and parole reforms as authorities move to depopulate and close facilities statewide.

But the reality inside California’s prisons, insiders say, is increasingly dangerous for both inmates and staff.

In the first six weeks of 2024, there were six homicides in California prisons, according to the corrections department. Five were inmate-on-inmate homicides and one involved a correctional officer shooting an inmate to prevent him from fatally stabbing another inmate.

Additionally, an Epoch Times review of the department’s statistics reveals a dramatic increase over the past several years in total incident reports, as well as in important categories including assault and battery on inmates and officers, use of force, and sexual assaults.

. . .

Patrick “Jimmy” Kitlas, who began serving a life sentence in 2007 and is now eligible for parole, told The Epoch Times by phone that there have been many “really sweeping and drastic” policy changes—but they are often contradictory or not implemented.

“This place has definitely become a less structured, a less secure, and a much more violent place,” he said from San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where he’s been since 2015 ... A new policy will often hit inmates and staff at the same time, he said, resulting in chaos.

“No one ever seems to really have a firm grasp of where the policy came from, what its purpose is, and how is the best way to implement it—which is super dangerous,” he said.

There's more at the link.

I have no problem with Norway's prison reforms:  indeed, in that country, for its particular society, they seem to be working very well.  However, US prison inmates are not Norwegians!  They have a radically different culture, often formed in what are effectively inner-city ghettoes, with a heavy emphasis on gangs and violence.  What idiot thought that a program or policy that worked for relatively well educated first-world-oriented Norwegians would automatically be effective when applied to relatively poorly educated gang-bangers from a ghetto or poverty-stricken South American country?

Some truths apply almost universally.  For example, I was able to understand and work with American prison gangs because of many years of experience with African tribes.  The tribal mindset, culture and structure carried over almost entirely to the gangs I encountered, so approaching them as if they were tribespeople paid dividends in getting through to them and gaining their trust.  However, I never made the mistake of assuming that because they resembled tribes, the gangs were as trustworthy as (some) tribes.  If a gang-banger wanted to be admitted to a prison program, one's first task was to find out what he expected to get out of it.  All too often it was to use it as an avenue to communicate with his homies outside the walls, or have things smuggled in to him, or get him closer to another inmate whom he wanted to blackmail, or assault, or even kill.  Believe me, we're very careful about that aspect of prison work!

I'll bet a pound to a penny that many of those who've signed up for these reformist programs in California see them as nothing other than a "soft touch".  Others will be using them as an avenue to continue their criminal careers.  (Don't forget, in prison, virtually all the inmates are predators:  but we've removed them from open society where there are lots of victims for them to predate.  Since they haven't changed their nature, they still predate, but now it's on each other and on the staff:  and since there are so many predators concentrated in one small place, the problem is intensified.  See my memoir about prison ministry for examples.)

I'm not surprised Norwegian policies are failing in California, because California inmates have very different backgrounds, education and cultures to Norwegian inmates.  End of story.

Peter