One could start by not putting as many folks in prisons and jails. You don't have to be a wealthy country to do that.
Norway is able to put fewer people in prison because it puts more emphasis on crime prevention. The US chose a different a long time ago, probably even as far back as the war on drugs. It's going to be very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube again, if that's even possible.
Besides being wealthy, isn't Norway pretty culturally/ethnically homogeneous? That may be a pretty important factor that may contribute to making their policy choices work.
Similarly, isn't it a welfare state? That could also play a pretty significant role, too.
I dunno. I'm an immigrant here, and my view might be skewed. That said, my own life has more diversity than it ever did in the US - I'm from the midwest. More types of folks. And I don't live in Oslo. That's no real reason that jails in the US can't be better and actually treat people like people that are going to live next door to you in the future. Being diverse isn't a reason to give long jail sentences or avoid jail/prison for more things. You certainly don't need a homogenous culture to do that sort of thing.
And yes, it is a welfare state, which means there are slightly fewer desperate people. I don't view that as a good thing - some of the folks here would just be left to die in the US. Some things also just mean a less stressful life - you know, like health care not making you go broke. It isn't perfect, mind you, and folks still fall through the cracks, but I'm sure it helps.
Having people in prison for a shorter period is still cheaper than having them come back again and again. For smaller crimes people are allowed to go home for the evenings/weekends and the biggest punishment really is loosing the ability to work.
I guess that this can prevent people from completely loosing touch with outside world which makes it easier to go back to a normal life.
Example article on crimes vs equality.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star...
Dictators are wealthy because even taking a few dollars per month from millions of people adds up fast.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NOR/norway/gdp-per-cap...
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...
No, they aren’t (except that the production that produces them is, for domestic investments), because investment returns aren’t finished goods and services, and GDP is the aggregate value of finished goods and services produced. Counting investment returns on top of that would be double counting for domestic investment, and counting something completely outside for foreign investments.
There’s significant debate around how much money should be taken from the fund to subsidize government services, but simply having money in an account they aren’t accessing doesn’t change the day to day finances.
Recidivism data really lags spending. Remember they need to have left prison 3+ years ago or you don’t know if they will go back in that time period and to have some effect you’re really talking about money allocated 5+ years ago.
The Norwegian krone is used more than other currencies (oil), but isn't nearly the same.
Norway GNI per capita: 83k PPP USA GNI per capita: 70k PPP
So: Can you show any such evidence? Because from where I sit, it certainly looks like Norway has more African and middle easters immigrants than Denmark, but still have more of them employed and have lower recidivism rates. So.... Where do you get it from?
But then we'd have a different article, talking about yet a different injustice.
> The rate of recidivism in Norway is around 20%. So only 1 in 5 end up back in prison, while the majority of people (4 in 5) don’t return to prison within a few years.
> This is a sharp contrast to even the neighbor countries like Sweden with 61% and Denmark with 63%. American prisons tend to have around 60 – 75 % in most states, but it varies a lot by state.
And here is a NYT article on the same prison: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/the-radical-huma...