“I’m not in prison here. This is like a four star hotel. I’ve never seen anything like it”
Hosmany Ramos
What makes Iceland’s prisons unique? They are known as open prisons.
Most of us feel that we have a pretty good understanding of what prisons are and what they are used for, but are they beneficial to our current society? U.S. prisons are seen as ineffective by scholars who study mass incarceration. In this short essay I will focus on discussing open prisons, in the context of Iceland, as a more effective alternative to the current prison system in the United States, which focuses more on punishment than rehabilitation.
What is an open prison? An open prison is a prison that has no bars, no lockdown gates, and inmates are allowed to walk around freely with other inmates (Pakes 2018). Inmates in open prisons have to work to make a living, allowing them to leave the prison to seek employment. Open prisons are found in countries around the world including India, England, and Ireland (Wikipedia). In Iceland, open prisons have helped the Icelandic penal system in some positive ways including decreasing the country’s overall crime rate and the lowering recidivism rate among those who are formerly incarcerated. More broadly, inmates in Iceland do not have long prison sentences. For example, in 2007, about 55 percent of all prison sentences were three months or less (Mallen et. al 2019). These conditions and characteristics differ substantially from U.S. prisons.
Rates of incarceration are low in Nordic countries and prison conditions are considered more tolerable for inmates (Pakes 2020). Iceland is no exception. Low crime rates are seen to be a product of Iceland’s communitarian social values (Mallen et. al 2019). Communitarian values are those where the focus is on the well-being of the community rather than just the individual alone. Having these values has helped Iceland flourish; it has some of the lowest crime rates in the world even when compared to other Nordic countries. Less that one percent of the Icelandic population reports an experience with criminal victimization (Mallen et. al 2019).
Open prisons in Iceland provide material comforts such as comfortable bedding, mobile phones, and the internet (Pakes 2020). There is outside space for inmates; recreational facilities and other amenities such as prison farms are positive incentives for inmates (Pakes 2020). One inmate serving time in Iceland has described his experience as “I’m not in prison here. This is like a four star hotel. I’ve never seen anything like it” (Grapevine 2011). In the United States, prisons are places of punishment with fewer opportunities for self-improvement and self-care. Creating a facility where inmates have better living conditions, and more autonomy and agency can help with the rehabilitation process. Prisoners need to be able to feel like they have a place in society in order to be able to reintegrate. That is ultimately what should happen in the United States.
One thing that we have to understand is that not all inmates are imprisoned for violent crimes. In the United States, a large proportion of the incarcerated population are people from marginalized communities who have committed nonviolent crimes. Today, U.S. prisons and jails are in need of improvement. In the United States we ought to explore the feasibility of open prisons for this country.
Finally I’d like to conclude that open prisons provide hope for inmates. They encourage rehabilitation instead of punishment. Open prisons give inmates space to focus and to get therapeutic services. Open prisons also put less stress on correctional officers and other prison workers, which could benefit the prison as a whole. Life is about our human interactions and that is how we are able to socialize. How will incarcerated individuals be able to improve themselves if they are locked in a cell for long periods of time? I hope that the U.S. criminal justice system might explore the concept of open prisons.
References
Andersen, Anna. 2011. Doing Time in Iceland.
Mallen, Agneta, Anette Storgaard, and Annemette Nyborg Lauritsen. 2019. Crime and Crime Control in Four Island Societies: The Faroes Islands, Greenland, Iceland, and The Åland Islands. Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology.
Pakes, Francis. 2020. “Old-fashioned Nordic penal exceptionalism: the case of Iceland’s open prisons”. Nordic Journal of Criminology 21(2): 113-128.
Pakes, Francis. 2018. “I deliberately sent myself to prison in Iceland – they didn’t even lock the cell doors there”.
Wikipedia. 2021. “Open prison.” January 11, 2021.
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