The happiest convicts in the world

The new complex is located outside a town of about 2,000 on a quiet rural landscape surrounded by small farms and clumps of woods. It has a gym with a beautiful huge mural of a seascape commissioned from a well-known painter. In the square at the center, where the residents mix freely with the staff, there is a school, a library, a grocer and recreation facilities such as a sound studio. The church and prayer room are bright, modern and inviting. There is a football field and workshops. The 140 square-foot private rooms each have a toilet, shower, refrigerator, TV and natural light from two sides, including a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of a lawn or a kitchen garden. They are situated around shared kitchens and common areas.

What is it, a college campus, a retreat center, a luxury hotel, a wellness spa? No, it’s Storstrøm Fængsel, the world’s newest maximum-security prison, which opened on September 25 on the island of Falster, Denmark. The objective was to make it resemble a village and ordinary life so that it is easier for the inmates to adapt to the outside world when they leave. Prisons in Scandinavia have been tending in this direction since around the 1970s. The Halden prison in Norway is perhaps the best-known example of architectural design based on the “normality principle.” Storstrøm Prison is intended to rival it in that regard. According to the Berlingske Tidende daily, it is intended to be “the most humane prison in the world” (DK). The officials behind the project believe that the architecture helps  to resocialize criminals, some of whom have never experienced a normal daily life.

It takes a village

Security has not been compromised, prison officials insist. There are a 20-foot wall as well as a fence around the entire complex and a separate locked high-security section. The open areas are covered by 300 cameras, and there are user-friendly electronic communications between the residential units and guards. The 250 inmates are divided into units of 54, and with the push of a button, they can be further locked down into small units about four to seven inmates. The smaller units make it easier for the staff, which also numbers about 250, to work with the convicts and easier to avoid problems that could arise from gang rivalries. The officials emphasize that contact between staff and convicts is important in identifying signs of radicalization. There has also been much interest from prison guards (DK) who want to work at the state-of-the-art facility.

From panopticon to entertainment center

An American prison guard who visited a few years ago was reportedly shocked at the planned conditions: “Prisoners shouldn’t be coddled.” Will Romanian pickpockets be tempted to come to Denmark and get themselves caught in order to get off the streets in the winter? The prison officials don’t think so. The main thing is that they are locked up and deprived of their cell phones. Nobody wants that. Taxpayers also ask why they should all have TVs? Because it keeps them occupied. Why should they have private toilets and baths? It saves money because guards don’t have to accompany them down a hall and avoids conflicts with other inmates.

The architects maintain that the buildings and facilities won’t make life easy for the inhabitants. Prisons are always rough environments. They note that prisons from the mid-19^th century were criticized for being too comfortable because they had toilets and electricity, which many criminals weren’t used to. Prisons should be built to last for a hundred years. According to the lead architect, Mads Mandrup Hansen of the C.F. Møller firm, who has presented the design at conferences around the world (DK), the idea is to create a framework for positive coexistence (the word he used was fælleskab, which usually connotes fellowship and community), but the architecture can’t do that by itself.

Evidence-based punishment?

Sounds good in theory, but does this bleeding-heart, rehab approach work and help make Denmark the happiest country in the world? Can a happy country afford to show compassion toward its less fortunate delinquents, and do comfortable convicts make law-abiding if not decidedly happy citizens afterward? What do the data on the recidivism rate for similar prisons say? There’s little information about that in all the coverage of the impressive new facility.

The crime rate is relatively low in Scandinavia, especially the violent crime rate. But prison design and policies are hardly the only factors in that. There must be a body of literature on the effects of various methods of incarceration, so it’s a little odd that it’s never mentioned. In any case, the new joint may get a good test because after a rash of gang-war shootings in Copenhagen in recent months, many dangerous characters who could use effective treatment have been arrested and jailed.

In contrast, the US, leaning back toward the eye-for-an-eye school under the new administration, recently voted against a UN resolution condemning the death penalty for behavior such as adultery, gay sex and blasphemy.