Why Luxury Prisons are Actually Genius

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Get Nebula using our link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://spectacles.link/nebula Norway has luxurious prisons. That might not be as stupid as it sounds. For citations, turn on CC. Sources listed below. 👮‍♂️ Lindsay Ellis's Bodycam Essay: https://spectacles.link/bodycam 🤴 RealLifeLore's Mad Kings: https://spectacles.link/madkings 🏞️ Wendover's The Colorado Problem: https://spectacles.link/colorado — Patreon: https://spectacles.link/patreon Nebula: https://spectacles.link/nebula Merch: https://spectacles.link/shop Discord: https://spectacles.link/discord Script: https://www.spectacles.news/whats-inside-norways-luxury-prisons/ — About us: Spectacles is a love letter to democracy, its values, its caretakers, and its ideas. Around the world, individual rights and representative government are facing unprecedented attacks from the forces of reaction and revisionism. But despite liberal democracy’s real shortcomings and today’s all-too-fashionable cynicism, we remain committed to its preservation and improvement. Join us as we explore just what liberal democracy is, how it comes about, and how it can best be maintained in a changing world. — NOTES AND SOURCES: † A number of academics argue that Norwegian recidivism rates are mis-measured and in actuality are much higher than 25%. To get all the details on this argument, I recommend reading chapter 8 in Are Hoidal’s and Nina Hanssen’s “The Norwegian Prison System.” The gist, though, is that the 25% number is still widely supported by many researchers, and the alternative rates proposed would land Norway close to 50%. Though dramatically higher, this would still rank Norway’s recidivism among the lowest in the world, and still about 33% lower than America’s rate of 76% (or, about 26 percentage points). ✱. Sources on average sentence lengths in America are very challenging to find, mostly because the US prison system is so diffuse. The average federal sentence is about 50 months, so significantly longer, but this number is distorted by the typically more severe nature of federal crimes and sentences. 32 months is based on all my research and reading from many sources. It is probably an underestimate. The same disclaimer about diffuse data applies to all other statistics about American prisons. This is itself an indictment of American prisons. We cannot fix what we cannot understand. A. Are Høidal and Nina Hanssen. *The Norwegian Prison System*. Taylor & Francis, 2022. B. Kristian Mjåland. “Er Det Mer Kriminalitet Nå Enn Før?” fvn.no, May 22, 2025. C. Storting, Justis- og politidepartmentet. “St. Meld. 104: Om Kriminalpolitikken.,” 1978. D. Emma Jane Kirby. “How Norway Turns Criminals into Good Neighbours.” *BBC News*, July 6, 2019. E. OECD. “OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2024 Results - Country Notes: Norway.” OECD, 2024. F. Oslo. “The Norwegian Model - Norwegian Society.” Oslo kommune, November 15, 2021. G. Wikipedia Contributors. “Nordic Model.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 19, 2019. H. Prison Insider. “Norway: Prisons in 2025.” I. Seena Fazel, Taanvi Ramesh, and Keith Hawton. “Suicide in Prisons: An International Study of Prevalence and Contributory Factors.” *The Lancet Psychiatry* 4, no. 12 (December 2017): 946–52. J. Richard Orange. “EXPLAINED: How Different Is the Norwegian Prison System Really?” The Local Norway, December 13, 2023. K. Hannan Amnad. “Foreign Prisoners: Findings of a Study in Foreign National Only Prisons in Norway and the Netherlands - CEP Probation.” CEP Probation, March 14, 2016. L. Åsne Seierstad and Sarah Death. *One of Us : The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway*. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015. M. Neuman, Scott. “Norwegian Mass Killer Demands ‘Adult’ Video Games in Prison.” NPR, February 16, 2014. N. Al Jazeera. “Norway Court Says Mass Killer Breivik’s Prison Isolation Not ‘Inhumane,’” February 15, 2024. O. Cindy and David Struckman-Johnson. “Sexual Coercion Rates in Seven Midwestern Prison Facilities for Men.” *The Prison Journal* 80, no. 4 (December 2000): 379–90. P. NC Justice Academy. “Detention Officer Certification Course,” May 3, 2023. Q. tn.gov. “Training Requirements,” n.d. R. Macrotrends. “Norway Crime Rate & Statistics 1990-2024.” Macrotrends.net, 2024. S. Nation Master. “Norway vs United States: Crime Facts and Stats.” Nationmaster.com, 2019. T. Liz Benecchi. “Recidivism Imprisons American Progress.” Harvard Political Review, August 8, 2021. U. Wendy Sawyer. “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn in Each State?” Prison Policy Initiative, April 10, 2017. — 00:00 INTRO 03:10 REHABILITATION 05:15 I. FENGSELSBETJENT 08:18 II. NORMALITETSPRINSIPPET 11:09 III. FENGSELSTRAPPEN 13:28 IV. SAMFUNN 15:17 CHALLENGES 19:39 CONCLUSION — Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Includes Music by Tom Fox