Home in Danish prison?
Miguel Cyr
The Gazette
When you hear the word prison, what is your first consideration? Punishment, people with no more rights and no more freedom. Not for a special prison system in Denmark called Danish
When 1/3 of the prisoners go back to prison compare to British whose statistics are 2/3, and that Denmark only receives 77 prisoners out of 100000 people, compare to British which receives 147 prisoners out of 100000 people. The prison system is really questioned.
Danish prison system do not use any violent ways. When you entry the prison they lend you a house which you are allowed to live with you wife and kids. Prisoners are not supervised because they are not guards. They have almost all the freedom they want the only thing that they don’t have is prisoners have to stay in the walls of the prison.
You don’t always have to use force suck as punishments, taking peoples freedom away. Yes they may deserve it after killing someone but as the facts show 1/3 prisoners will go back to prison than 2/3. In other words the prison systems works.
My life is the same thing. My mom punishes me for having bad marks in school but she never saw any improvement. Maybe if she would encourage me instead of punishing, it would maybe be a better outcome.
Nor that they only have the freedom but the average sentence is 6 months in Denmark which British is 13 months.
The only guards are mostly women. Women guards are often better than men in calming down a prisoner who are getting angry and the number of women helps the prisoners behave more normally. They don't just meet criminals and male guards, they interact with women.
Kenneth and Hanne is a couple, serving 16 years for murdering Hanne’s father. They are serving their sentence in Danish prison. Kenneth and Hanne are both living in the same house with their kid, living like if nothing happened. They can go to school to finish their education.
The first goal of the prison is that, prisoner come out rehabilitated than coming out with more anger and probably committing another crime. That the same time, the main purpose of the Prison and Probation Service in Denmark is to contribute to reducing criminality.
At the first thought of this prison system, you might think that it’s unfair and they have too many rights for what they have done example murdering somebody. But if you take a minute and think about it it’s better than the person who murdered someone be educated so when we his sentence will be over he will have his education diploma done which maybe wasn’t. This prison was build so that it correspond to conditions outside
A lot of people might see it in the same way as I do. If you kill someone, you should be killed. Bringing capital punishment back would maybe be another solution because people wouldn’t want to die so be wouldn’t kill anyone nor do anything bad. But if this prison system is a solution which even works why not apply it in the entire world?
The Danish justice system is based on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Punishment isn’t a way out encouraging people and educating them is the right way to rehabilitation and as the same time reducing our criminal records.