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Sweden Is Closing Many Prisons Due to Lack of Prisoners
rtoz writes "Sweden is taking steps to close many prisons due to lack of prisoners. This year alone, four prisons and a detention center got closed in Sweden. The percentage of the population in Sweden prison is significantly lower than in most other countries. ... Though the Swedish Government is taking steps to close the prisons, the crime rate in Sweden has increased slightly. It seems they are planning to take steps for preventing crime rather than focusing on jailing people involved in criminal activities."
Well, tragic that the prison industry is too profitable in the US to follow suit, anyway.
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See what happens when you provide free health care, childcare & social services to prevent crimes based on poverty and drug use!
All those precious moments of a Cold War youth, and all I have to show for them is that I saw them go down the memory hole.
The most disturbing thing to me is that, on a different site, that comment could be construed as both, serious AND insightful.
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Yeah, right, IT'S A CONSPIRACY! Come back when you have a source more credible than Newsmax.
California has a problem with overcrowded prisons. Sweden has a problem with prisons being unoccupied.
I sense an opportunity for a good capitalist.
No, keep your filth right where it is.
What the US should be doing is disarming its law ENFORCEMENT agency and let it become again a police force.
What the US should be doing is let less and less people go to prison. And those that go, shoudl go to be rehabilitated into civil society. In other words the US should be inspired by european moral values and not the shitty "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" bullshit ideology that underlies its entire judicial system. Designed only to put people into prison for minor deeds.
Swedish prisoners have a better life in general than people in the USA in a minimum wage job. They get better housing, food and work hours, plus they get education, health care and all, so they have a chance to stay out of prison once their punishment is over. Bonus: they get to keep their voting rights after they are out, so they are still part of the democratic process that is the base of the laws that put them in prison in the first place.
Maybe it's time the USA starts looking at how Sweden gets this accomplished and use that as an inspiration to improve. If even the prisoners there have it better than over a quarter of the free people in the USA, you'd say there should be improvements to be found.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
there is a difference between a police officer with a ford sedan, a pistol or 2 with a couple of extra clips, taser, baton, pepper spray and bullet-proof vest, and a police officer with an armoured personnel carrier, machine gun, hand grenades and storm trooper outfit
capitalism is extremely efficient at profiting from human misery
government is extremely efficient at creating human misery
But the one drug that is no longer prohibited is now the worst offender of all? Me thinks you need to rethink that argument.
It still makes sense if you look at it in the context of that as bad as alcohol is now, as bad as it was before prohibition, the net effects of it's prohibition on society was worse. Alcohol poisonings went up. Hell, our own government caused a number of deaths by deliberately poisoning alcohol in a weird "Drinking is bad! Let's make it worse! by deliberately poisoning it and maybe people will stop!" line of thinking. You vastly empowered organized crime(the 'mobs' of the day, 'gangs' today), got violence on the street, incredible incentives for police to become corrupt, the shift from 'officer of the peace' to 'law enforcement', etc...
My support for legalizing drugs is pure harm mitigation, not harm prevention. Because prevention isn't working even at huge expense.
I don't read AC A human right
The US suffers a "inefficiency of scale" problem -- the idea of acting like a citizen.
... and we don't get micromanaged like what happens in European countries ...
...
Many of the continental European countries are more tightly bound in the human spirit and sense of identity and culture than the USA.
The USA suffers from "what's in it for me?" freeloaders and "what's in it for me?" capitalists and "what's in it for me?" politicians --- all of which miss grander and greater human concepts.
Although people in the USA generally have a lot of freedom and very little oversight
pros and cons, everyone wants the cake and eat it too
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
[i] Sweden has shown the ability to rehabilitate around twice as effectively as the USA(20% recedivism vs 60% here, ergo 80% effective vs 40%)[/i]
I think an important point being overlooked in this discussion is an analysis of the conditions that drove the inmates to crime in the first place. How many crimes are committed by someone trying to callously shortcut the rules of society vs. someone down on their luck or just trying to survive? Perhaps there's nothing particularly special about the rehabilitation methods performed by the prisons, but instead, Sweden's done a top job of addressing the underlying issues.
Also - and I have to bring it up - stupid-ass drug laws. If we can't legalize the mostly harmless recreational drugs out there, can we PLEASE stop locking people up for minor drug offenses, and instead fine them, like traffic violations (which are actually, you know, dangerous) and other civil infractions? Fines would actually help regulate the 'problem' while RAISING MONEY instead of needlessly locking up harmless people (destroying their lives in the process) which then becomes a gigantic drain on society due to the fact that we've now made them effectively wards of the state. It's fucking idiotic, man. Catch a guy smoking a joint? Slap him with a $150 ticket. No criminal record established, just show up and pay your fine and everything is golden. Don't slam his face into the pavement and seize his house and pull his children into state custody and ruin his reputation for the rest of his life, ensuring that when he finally gets out of prison, he'll turn to crime, because you've eliminated any and all chances that he'll magically fall into being a useful member of society after you've branded him for life. Nobody wants to hire the guy that just spent months in lockup on drug charges. The system we have here now does not 'rehabilitate' anyone. It brands them with a criminal record that they can never live down, often for minor charges. OF COURSE they turn to crime - even if what they were doing was harmless and not immoral in any way. They were convicted and served sentences and were told by everyone that they were a criminal and did criminal things. Why wouldn't they turn to crime when released? Everyone thinks they're a criminal anyway.
However, in Norway the population is, by and large, loyal to the government, believe it or not. In fact, that is how it is in most of Europe, AFAIK. Even if we don't agree with the government's policies, we still trust and respect them.
That's because your government actually represents you reasonably well. And that, in turn, is because you keep it in check.
Americans believe that any government is bad government, but that's because all they ever saw is bad government. They don't realize that a strong government can do a great many things for its citizens so long as the citizens keep it in check and make it focus its power towards their needs.
capitalism is extremely efficient at profiting from human misery
humans are extremely efficient at creating human misery
/FIFY
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You're behind the times. GCHQ have their own slashdot.
Of course, who knows which one you're reading at the moment...
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Your observation is that people have always been calling politicians fuckwits, and your conclusion is that people have always been wrong.
I suggest that people have always been right.
It's in the nature of the position: if one must want power to gain power, then only those who want power will be in power. Apart from the very rare altruist - Aneurin Bevan was probably one of the last such politicians in the UK - it is a case of give me sortition or give me fuckwits.
US prisons are full because it is profitable for the companies that run them. If crime drops enough, then they will find a way to keep them full anyway, and a surveillance/police state is a guarantee that they will succeed at that.
However, in Norway the population is, by and large, loyal to the government, believe it or not. In fact, that is how it is in most of Europe, AFAIK. Even if we don't agree with the government's policies, we still trust and respect them.
That's because your government actually represents you reasonably well. And that, in turn, is because you keep it in check.
Americans believe that any government is bad government, but that's because all they ever saw is bad government. They don't realize that a strong government can do a great many things for its citizens so long as the citizens keep it in check and make it focus its power towards their needs.
I don't think we have the same idea here. We don't keep our government "in check". Instead, we populate the government with people representative to some degree of the population at large. When the richest 1% are not the ruling class, you get wonderful benefits like a taxation of not only the poor, but also the rich. And that there provides a fantastic boost to the national economy.
In short, keeping your government "in check" is less important when the government already attempts to work for the nation at large rather than only for those that might fund the next election. Also, it builds one hell of a trusting relation which helps when you need to do unpleasant things like slash the retirement funds or raise the retirement age.
There's a very good reason for that.
People who put themselves forward and offer services as a politician should be the last choice to fill that position.
People of sound mind, kind heart and good will should be extorted into fulfilling that duty, if we are ever to be a success.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
What that leads to is that when you get robbed, you'll also get killed. If the punishment is the same whether you live or die, you die. It's one less witness.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem of the US prisons is pretty well exactly that of England before the American Revolution - private prisons that make a profit out of a government that they ask, with inducements, to send a lot of people their way for minor crimes. The only real difference is the US taxpayer is supplying the profits instead of the prisoners paying a lot of it.
When you grow up things should be a little more clear to you. If not your education has failed you.
It's better if cops are held to the same standards as citizens when they kill someone.
Sad thing is the whole 'treatment over punishment' thing was originally an American system that other countries copied because it was working fairly well, but then the US abandoned it favor of righteous suffering.
The problem of the US prisons is pretty well exactly that of England before the American Revolution - private prisons that make a profit out of a government that they ask, with inducements, to send a lot of people their way for minor crimes. The only real difference is the US taxpayer is supplying the profits instead of the prisoners paying a lot of it.
This is a problem, but the bigger problem is that the US system is focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Rather than trying to bring these people back into society and make them productive and upstanding citizens, we push them to the margins. We make finding a job after prison exceedingly difficult and only the most menial and low-class jobs will accept former criminals. We strip citizens of the right to vote, which devalues them. We have very lengthy sentences (To punish those evildoers!) for fairly harmless crimes, which is devastating to families and pushes people into poverty needlessly. Depending on the crime, we put them on lists and track them for life which makes their post-prison lives difficult.
Sweden, on the other hand, focuses on bringing people who have strayed from the path back into society. Their methods work. However, if anyone in the US wants to employ their methods, they are seen as "soft on crime" at worst. At best, they can't get the funding needed to enact meaningful rehabilitation programs. It is far cheaper (in the short term) and easier to put people in cages compared to education and rehabilitation.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Ah, humans. We have the perfect strategy for getting what we want from democracy: "Don't like it? Stop voting!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Isn't it more likely prosecution is difficult because there is frequently no evidence and no eyewitnesses, just one persons word against another? In those circumstances it *should* be hard to get a conviction.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace