The Pros And Cons Of Prisons

Imagine waking up on a sunny day, disappearing outside and to tend to farm animals in the morning, in the afternoon going for a swim at the local beach, and in the evening sit around a table at your home playing cards with your fellow inmates. Yes, inmates! Well at least this is the kind of treatment inmates can find themselves in Norway2. This radical treatment is an intriguing new way that Norway and other European countries are implementing social reintegration of the inmates. By creating stronger rehabilitation programs while improving the quality of life of inmates, the government can help integrate individuals back into society, while saving funds for other assets and making the country safer. Assimilating these ideas, the government

Yet, it is occurring in prisons in Europe and Canada. In Canada, prisons are referred to as detention centres or correctional centres; hopefully where individuals can alter their conduct. However, are inmates learning from their mistakes and correcting their behaviour? In Canada, the Correctional Services of Canada states that each inmate serving two or more years will have 26 group sessions and up to 2 individual sessions, each lasting 2-2.5 and 1 hour respectively5. Contradictory to these undertakings, prisons in North America are made to have an unappealing and frightening appearance in order to scare individuals from committing a crime. The government cares more about punishing the offender than teaching him/her how to avoid committing the crime indefinitely. Arne Nilsen, a governor at Bastøy Prison in Norway intuitively remarked, “The punishment is that you lose your freedom. If we treat people like animals when they are in prison they are likely to behave like animals.9” In order to fulfil a humane sentence everyone “imprisoned” has access to personal televisions, computers, showers and toilets in Norwegian Prisons. Furthermore, a variety of daily classes are offered for general education and specific skill-training for occupations in

Yet this wage does not take into account inflation and minimum wage14. What is surprising is that federal corrections in 2013 spent $2.3 billion on public safety. This does not take into account provincial or municipal centres. Each prisoner in federal penitentiaries costs taxpayers on average $117,788 per year and it is increasing every year. The more severe the crime was, the more it cost taxpayers. Furthermore, in April, 2013, the annual cost of the 579 women that were incarcerated in federal prisons was $211,618 each. Shockingly, the average daily cost of a prisoner in a penitentiary was $32216. In Canada’s federal prisons, out of the more than 19,000 correctional service employees, 7,000 guards watch over 15,500 inmates17, 18. Therefore, there are roughly 12,000 support staff, which includes nurses, doctors, specialists, social workers, parole officers, and tradespeople. Albeit, the financial outcome in the Norwegian prison system is entirely different. For instance, inmates are paid 53 kroners ($10.20 CAD) just to leave their “cell”. As Høidal, governor of Halden prison, states, “If you have very few activities, your prisoners become more aggressive. If you stay in a box for a few years, then you are not a good person when you come out. If you treat them hard… well, we don 't think that treating them hard will make them a better man. We don 't think about