> If you take an absolutist, principled or binary view, then most imprisonment is a torture of some sort. It causes severe psychological distress. That's what a prison is. The differences are in the nuance, and you might call those subjective.

That's what prison in America is, but that's not what prison either has to be, or is everywhere else in the world.

If your goal is to torture people, America's system is very effective. If your goal is to rehabilitate people and make sure they don't go on to commit more crimes, America's system is an abject failure.

Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...

>>Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%.

I'm no defender of the US prison system, but why compare the US to Norway, a country with:

* a population of 5 million Norwegians, the descendants of whom actually rank very high in socioeconomic indicators in the US

* one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, thanks in large part to being one of the highest per capita oil exporters in the world for decades

> a population of 5 million Norwegians, the descendants of whom actually rank very high in socioeconomic indicators in the US

Why does this matter?

> one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, thanks in large part to being one of the highest per capita oil exporters in the world for decades

Their GDP per capita is almost identical to the US. (And the US has tons of oil too for what it's worth.)

Because who the people are, who administer the prison system, and who are the objects of the prison system's rehabilitation program, matters. Humanity isn't a mass of identical copies. Certain traits, that might be highly conducive to effective rehabilitation, concentrate in certain regions of the world.

A smaller polity also tends to mean a much more accountable government which might be expected to be much more effective at implementing any policy.

>>Their GDP per capita is almost identical to the US.

Nominal per capita GDP is $5,000 higher.

The country also has a population that is 80X smaller. Smaller population size tends mean much smaller regional variations in socioeconomic conditions and fewer regions with the extreme conditions associated with high crime rates and pervasive criminal sub-cultures.

Don't we think the way we handle prisons greatly affects the culture around them?

> Smaller population size tends mean much smaller regional variations in socioeconomic conditions and fewer regions with the extreme conditions associated with high crime rates and pervasive criminal sub-cultures.

Do US regional prisons in non-hotspot areas do much better?

How many criminal sub-cultures extend past a single city?

> but why compare the US to Norway

Because it is currently fashionable in the US to esteem, exalt, or even hallow many things Scandavian. If you live in the US, you’ve no doubt seen this.

To many in the US, the Scandavians have just nailed it everything social-economic. Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)

> Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)

I mean, the furthest you can get from fresh fish in Norway is pretty different to what is seen in most the US. I'm not sure that Fish is the answer there

> I'm not sure that Fish is the answer there

Well, there was no question so I’m not sure what fish is or is not the answer to.

Anyway, you cannot deny America’s obsession with Scandinavia culture, economy, and society.

Are you really suggesting that a country full of white people is a priori superior to a diverse country? Do you realise how insanely racist that is? Can you back up your assertion that Norway's good record on recidivism is because of all the whites?

Hold up. That's a bit of a strawman argument. He didn't say "country full of white people", he specifically mentioned socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status generally correlates negatively with criminality. There's nothing inherently racist about that statement, it's just stating that:

- desperate people will do desperate things to survive

- oppressed people are bound to lash out

- the poor are powerless against authority

- people in poorer neighbourhoods are prone to overpolicing

- destitute people are more likely to succumb to substance abuse

If he said recidivism or crime rates were higher because the population was black/hispanic/etc, that would obviously be racist.

But when it comes to US vs. Norway, surely what matters is their status in their home country. Why is the status of the descendants of the ones that move to the US important, if you're not trying to say it's something innate about them?

I don't want to assume such a motivation for bringing it up, which is why in my own comment I just asked why it was relevant in a completely neutral way. But that got me no response.

I didn't read too much into his use of "descendants", trying to be charitable in my interpretation. But having read his response to you I'm starting to have second thoughts...

Culture matters, and survives migration.

Now you're losing me. In what way does "culture" matter? Socioeconomic status has nothing to do with "culture".

Well as Devil’s advocate, look at how people in Japan reacted after Fukushima. The world was awed by how awesome their “community spirit” was - nobody denied they exhibited far more social cohesion, sacrifice and civic responsibility than would ever be on display in the US.

That’s a cultural difference on display. Culture is not determined by race, so let’s not conflate the two. Culture is something you are immersed in and it does influence behavior.

There are also massive downsides to extreme cultural cohesion, looking at it another way.

But let’s not deny that social culture has a bearing on individual and group behavior. It has a massive impact. Conflating that observation with race or _racism_ seems a particularly unhelpful neuroticism of the US.

I agree with most of what you say. It's just that culture in the US isn't nearly as homogeneous as culture in Japan, and I have my doubts now as to whether the poster in question was talking about US as a whole or the culture (read race) of a specific demographic. Also, your examples here entirely sidestep the subject, which is crime and recidivism, things that are also found in Japan, probably lower than in the US but probably still higher than in Norway.

I never said anything that would imply that, so please take your absurdly inflammatory accusation out of here.

You’re comparing Norway’s 2 year recidivism rate with the US’s 5 year rate. The US’s 2 year rate is 29%.

You’re comparing Norway’s 2 year recidivism Reconviction rate with the US’s 2 year Reimprisonment rate. The US’s 2 year Reconviction rate is 36%.

Even if those are the correct numbers to compare (which the other reply to you is questioning), the US number is 45% higher than Norway's which is still quite significant. Using the 36% rate from the other reply to you, the US rate is instead 80% higher than Norway's.

What I find striking are the reported recidivism rates of Sweden and Norway: 43% vs. 20% after 2 years. Sure, Norway is richer and socially/ethnically more homogeneous, but can this be the whole explanation for this extreme difference, considering the two countries are otherwise very similar?

Well Norway is a fraction the size of the US in population.

I would imagine that wealth, cultural homogeneity, and a very small population accounts for at least 80% of the explanation. So not the “whole” explanation, but the critical mass of why it works, sure.

It’s questionable to assume that Norway’s system could scale up by a factor of even 3x, let alone something sixty times the size. I’d be interested if it could produce results in a country like Spain or France with 50m people before calling on the US to simply do what Norway does but with 350m people.

Sure, but my question is about the difference between Norway and Sweden. Sweden has (merely) twice the population size of Norway, is culturally similar, highly developed, has a similar political system etc, but still seems to fair far worse.

Why not implement it at a state level then? Many states in the US have a similar population to Norway.

Wow, I had no idea recidivism in Norway was that high. I expected something like 5%.

Basically 1 in 5 ex convicts return to crime.

Worth noting that rates don't necessarily tell the whole story. In some countries you will avoid prison entirely for a whole range of offences including even some "heavy" things. It's not impossible that in countries like Norway or Denmark, people who are in prison are already statistically part of the people less likely to be rehabilitated.

On the other hand, prisons entirely create problems they're supposedly there to solve. Just ask people who've gone through juvenile detention if it's not a breeding ground to make some contacts and learn the ropes..

You'd almost need a compound unit like (reconviction rate at x years) * (prison population/total population) in order to figure out what is going on, with the idea that you'd want both reconvictions and proportion of population in prison to be low numbers.

For reference, the US has 655 prisoners per 100k, Norway has 60 per 100k.

It's generally higher than that depending on the data you use too. Most statistics you see are based on 1-2 year recidivism rates, so if they end up in prison at a later date then that's not included. For example, the UK keeps data of up to 9 years. It increases from 46% to 78% during that time period, so really almost 4 in 5 people return to crime.

Another thing to note is some base it on reconviction, instead of reimprosonment, which obfuscate the data again.

A decent summary of some research done in 2020 in recidivism rates: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...

As someone who grew up around serious criminals, this number is far lower than what you’d see in North America and shows that Norway at least makes some progress.

X/5 convicts return to crime because it is all they know and their peer group, family, and professional network are all infected by crime and their childhoods were marked by abuse, neglect, drugs, stress, anxiety, and isolation from healthy and stable human relationships. Good, well to do people like to pretend they are better than the lower classes but seriously undervalue their own good luck.

You can give an exconvict a bath, haircut, and paper degree all you want but at the end of the day the average citizen will still see them as scum and irreversibly damaged. Good luck finding a good job as a minority or (to a lesser degree) otherwise with any kind of record. The truth is that the punishment for a crime doesn’t end with one’s first stint in prison but continues for life.

Criminals are made far more often than they are born and the system is too quick to affirm the idea that they are little better than animals. No surprise to me that many return to crime.

As we know, correlation doesn’t mean causation. Recidivism may have nothing to do with prison conditions for all we know. The link you provided even says that numerous other factors have more of an impact on recidivism.

> Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?

Your mistake is in not realizing that this is considered a feature, not a bug. The US incarceration system is very much designed so that "certain people" stay in prison for the majority of cradle to grave. It is not in the interest of this design that recidivism be reduced.

Certainly feels that way with the minimum prison occupancy contracts states sign with private prisons. [1]

[1] http://www.aublr.org/2017/11/private-prison-contracts-minimu...

>Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?

There's a thousand other ways America is different from Norway. The quote statistic -> unwarranted conclusion -> logic dunk! shitposting ruins websites.

> it causes severe psychological distress. That's what prison is.

Depends. Some penal systems are there for "retribution" or punishment, and those match your definition. Other concepts available are rehabilitation and simply separating proven dangerous elements from society at large. Apart from the loss of freedom of movement (which I would not describe as "severe psychological distress"), there is no hard requirement for a prison system to be even unpleasant.

Having your freedom restricted for years is not "severe psychological distress"?

Have to disagree there.

Why? Would you really say that restricting freedoms generally causes severe psychological distress? What about militaries around the world, that either through volunteer or conscription, severely restrict a soldier’s freedom and requires compulsory training and work? It seems that we are stretching “severe psychological distress” to the point of meaninglessness if simply having your movement restricted and being required to follow some sort of rules and regime based system causes it. There is a difference between stress and “severe psychological distress”.

The philosophy of imprisonment is fairly vast, I believe.

But hard/philosophical requirements notwithstanding, prisons tend to be what they are. The famous moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed some a "modern" prison system with some of these goals in mind, especially reform. The result was quite horrific.

You've chosen to ignore any of the cases of actually modern reform-based prison systems and instead bring up the late 18th century? Odd choice.

Note that the exaggerated theoretical horrors of Bentham's panopticon are the mundane reality of modern non-prison life under camera and cell phone surveillance.

Being watched by guards isn't one of the top 10 worst aspects of living in prison.

I can't agree. I doubt many people on HN are "absolutist" a lot of us do realize that the US prison system is horrible if you're not in a white collar minimal security prison (and he would not be, he is headed for a federal prison with probably 23.5 hours solitary confinement a day in a room and 30 minutes of exercise) and probably some time with his lawyers. I can't say I wouldn't side with the English judge in this case, he's just calling it like he sees it.

Pretty sure the judge is "she", not "he".