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.

The less happy among us

Except for the free newspaper MX Metroxpress, Politiken is Denmark’s largest-circulation daily (DK). In the past, it was associated with the Social Liberal Party. Now it is formally independent, but it still has a left-leaning political stance and its readership is decidedly sympathetic to socialistic currents in the country and the welfare state in general. One expression of this approach is a tendency to see victims everywhere, that is, to identify people as neglected or slighted and to showcase their plights. Of course the media have responsibility to identify injustice, analyze its origins and workings, and place the blame where it belongs. But Politiken’s treatment seems excessive.

I’m hardly the first to notice this phenomenon, but surveying some examples offers a curious angle on the ramifications of the “welfare society” that produces the highest relative happiness rankings in the world. Few of the opinions represent the newspaper’s own explicit editorial positions. Some reflect the journalist’s or commentator’s views, some belong to the subject of the pieces, and some are from letters to the editor. But they all reflect the kind of topic the paper wants to draw attention to (the paper has an English-language extract).

Disasters natural and man-made

So who are victims? I’m not referring to the obvious, indisputable cases covered by all newspapers: hurricane victims, earthquake victims, the persecuted Rohingya. Migrants who drown in the Mediterranean. Yemenis suffering from hunger, cholera and war. Sri Lankan children kidnapped and sold for adoption. Random shooting victims and residents of Copenhagen neighborhoods with gang wars. These people may be portrayed with more or less pathos and indignation, but they are not the type that Politiken specializes in. Here is a random sample from the past couple of weeks.

Students who feel compelled to take Ritalin and beta blockers because of pressure to perform. Families with more than three children, who because of an administration proposal would see their “child-check” reduced. One hundred and ten Siemens employees in Jutland who were laid off because jobs were moved to France and Germany. Train passengers who are delayed more than an hour and don’t get the free meal they’re entitled to according to an EU directive. Divorced men who miss out on those same “child-checks” because their children have their official address with their mother.

Jobless, pedestrians, girls, the EU

Children who are bullied at school, despite the decline from 25 percent to 10 percent over the past 20 years. Local citizens who must pay for the cleanup of a nature preserve polluted by the military. Young girls who don’t read a book everyday (41 percent instead of 32 percent seven years ago) because peer pressure makes them chat on social media instead. Quota refugees whose reception the Danish administration has postponed until 2018. The unemployed who are denied permanent disability benefits and forced to undergo job training because of a stricter policy. The mentally ill and handicapped who were not approved for aid by their municipalities and won on appeal.

Children seduced into becoming compulsive gamblers by computer games. Pedestrians on a new bridge over Copenhagen Harbor who are endangered by cyclists. The EU, which is being cheated out of EUR 5 billion in taxes by the likes of Google and Facebook. Civil servants who get emails from work on Sunday. People swindled into sending money for purchases of iPhones on Facebook. Senior citizens who want to supplement their low income with home equity loans and are rejected because their income is too low. Young women who have to live with emasculated men.

Smokers, politicians, nurses, trippers

Smokers on welfare who do not get a bonus for quitting smoking as other citizens do. Hospital employees who are overworked and hospital patients who are under-served because of a reduction of funding. An adoptee from India who is perceived as non-Danish. Children born to older mothers who have an elevated risk of ADHD. Politicians whose budget proposals are heavily criticized in the media. University students who can’t find an apartment or room to rent. Children whose parents won’t let them be vaccinated. The world, which will experience more hurricanes because of global warming.

Denmark, which will get a politically unqualified US ambassador. Alcoholics, who can’t get good treatment because Danish culture encourages overdrinking. The unemployed, who are subject to a longer qualifying period for benefits. Students who are abroad for more than one year and according to a legislative proposal would lose their stipend. The elderly, who do not receive adequate care in nursing homes. Babies who suffer from understaffing at day-care centers. Everyone who does not have access to psychedelics, which according to the chair of the Psychedelic Society should be a human right.

Universal basic well-being

I’m not saying that many of these things aren’t legitimate grievances. Only noting that there seems to be an endless supply and asking, in the welfare society, where do these purported human rights end? The Danish concept of “millimeter democracy” refers to a contest in which if one person gets favorable treatment, another person feels entitled to the equivalent, and the next in turn, ad infinitum, or at least until you have accumulated the world’s largest public sector. If it confers great happiness, why does it also produce so much resentment? What used to be known as the right to the pursuit of happiness often comes to be viewed as a right to every comfort and convenience, if not happiness itself. Why not just break out the soma?

Tax cuts and inequality

Last week the Løkke Rasmussen administration presented a proposal for tax reforms called Job Reform Phase II.  The measures are intended to provide tax relief to various income groups and give greater incentives to work. They inevitably provoked controversy about how much was necessary and who benefits most.

One of the basic issues under debate on tax reform has been whether to reduce or abolish the high marginal tax rate in order to prompt high earners to work more or to reduce the rate on the lowest income group in order to bring more people into the labor force. The Liberal Alliance party had made the former its cause and had been virtually holding the government hostage with the demand. Leading economists have also endorsed the position, saying it would be revenue-neutral. The Danish People’s Party, the largest party supporting the administration, on the other hand, has demanded tax relief for low-income workers. So who won?

Take-home pay

One of the key measures was an adjustment of the employment deduction. People in the lowest income bracket would get a new deduction of DKK 4,500 ($720). The rationale is that this would make it more appealing for a segment of the population to work instead of receive transfer payments. The government estimates that the measure would reduce this segment from 50,000 to 21,000 people.

At the same time, the ceiling on the employment deduction would be removed, and this would benefit people in the highest tax bracket (with a marginal rate of 56%). There are several other measures, most of which also seem to benefit high earners, such as an acceleration of the increase in the threshold of the highest income bracket, a reduction on the tax on car purchases (to 100%) and a more favorable treatment of pension contributions.

Malleable statistics

In a simplified scheme, the administration estimates the tax savings for four income groups. It emphasizes that the lowest segment would receive the largest percentage reduction, 7.1%. The middle segments would receive about 3.8%, and the highest segment 5.7%. The absolute amounts, of course, paint a different picture. The lowest group gains about $800 and the highest (represented by an income of about $165K) gains $4,300. So the question is whether the administration is trying to sneak a tax break for the rich into the package without actually changing the marginal tax rate. And the real question is whether doing so is good or bad.

Other organizations calculate the effects differently, of course. The Economic Council of the Labour Movement estimates that the top ten percent would receive an additional $1,900 in disposable income and the lowest ten percent would receive $48, not even taking into account supplementary factors such as the tax on cars. Such estimates are always debatable. It’s difficult to make comparisons partly because of a panoply of other taxes and duties, such as 25% VAT.

Gini out of the bottle

The criticism from the left is that the measures would increase inequality. According to Cepos, the leading conservative think-tank, the reforms would increase inequality more than any other since 2001. They would raise the Gini coefficient by 0.46, from a level of about 28.8. This has elicited many protests and denunciations not only from opposition politicians but also from cultural figures. The actor Flemming Jensen, for example, launched a broadside on Facebook accusing the administration of betraying Denmark’s heritage of solidarity and equality and promoting a neoliberal “law of the jungle” that is creating a caste system while the number of homeless increases, hospitals are forced to reduce costs and so on. In a subsequent interview, he concluded that no one in Denmark needs an income of more than $160K: “Why the hell would we?” Imagine how that would play in a country with heroes like Zuckerburg and Bezos.

The administration acknowledges the rise in equality and calls it insignificant. It argues that putting more people to work and raising all disposable incomes inevitably increases inequality but the level in Denmark would remain one of the lowest in the world (the Gini coefficient for the US, in comparison, is one of the highest, at around 46-48). Finance Minister Kristian Jensen said that he has been to town hall meetings around the country and no one has ever asked about the Gini coefficient; they ask rather how the government will enable businesses to hire more people. But they were probably his party’s own constituents. The Danish People’s Party is against the abolition of the deduction ceiling.

The secret to happiness?

This debate goes to one of the central issues of the research on comparative happiness internationally. The happiest countries generally have very low inequality, but is equality the direct cause of happiness, the most important single factor, or a derivative effect of other factors? If it is a causal factor, is there a limit to its beneficial effects? It is possible that, for historical, political and demographic reasons, the socialist tendencies in Western Europe that have brought relative equality and happiness in the prosperity since World War Two are no longer able to sustain them in the current low-growth global economy.

But that’s a theoretical question. The political reality is that the populations of social democracies are split. The so-called “welfare coalition” of welfare recipients and civil servants generally favors higher taxation and a larger public sector. Those in the private sector would rather keep more of their gross earnings. There is a constant tug-of-war and a tinkering with the tax tables whenever the governing majority shifts between a center-left and center-right coalition. Although Denmark’s economy is somewhat stagnant, it is fundamentally sound. The country has the luxury of being able to take or leave the proposed reforms, which may have more symbolic value than practical consequences. Perhaps sooner than we think, robotics and AI will shift the debate on the labor market and inequality to how to implement universal basic income.

Royalty and national pride

There he goes again. Now Prince Henrik, the husband of Queen Margrethe, has announced that he won’t be buried with the queen in the sarcophagus in Roskilde Cathedral specially constructed for them by a prominent sculptor. This proud French nobleman has complained for years about not being made king, and when he retired from active duty last year at the age of 81, he gave up the title of prince consort, which had distinguished him from his male progeny but still rankled. For this latest stunt, he was immediately criticized by royalty experts as well as many of his subjects for besmirching a long tradition.

One of the most glaring differences between the nations of Denmark and the United States, of course, is that the former is a monarchy, in fact “the world’s oldest existing” one. The institution of the royal family, particularly the current one despite the wayward paterfamilias, is held in high regard by the vast majority of the citizenry, and one could ask how it contributes to the Danes’ vaunted happiness and life satisfaction. It is evidently no small source of national pride. It fosters a sense of shared identity, history, tradition and continuity. Its rituals, pageantry and bygone decorum foster a warm, fuzzy feeling and a reminder of time when Denmark ruled much of northern Europe – at least when the current figureheads are behaving properly.

Just doing their job

The queen is a talented painter and designer. The maturing, amiable crown prince is a triathlete. His brother is a more questionable character who alienated his first wife and then found a second who bears an uncanny resemblance to the crown prince’s romantic catch from Tasmania. People follow their elaborate wedding preparations, the ceremonial parades in horsedrawn coaches, their toddlers starting day-care with ordinary offspring; they see the entire family all gathered live on the palace balcony twice a year smiling and waving to the commoners below. Journalists hastily brief us on the backgrounds of the privileged guests at gala dinners and the decorations conferred on the captains of industry and steadfast civil servants. The queen gives a brief speech on New Year’s Eve urging her subjects to be tolerant and generous and thanking Greenlanders for their hospitality on official visits.

There’s a tame weekly picture magazine devoted to the Danish royals and their European counterparts that rarely uncovers more than mild scandals over special dispensations for fox hunts and other indulgences. Now, by making an ultimatum of his demand for the title, Prince Henrik has upped the ante, provoking some to condemn tabloid sensationalism exploiting an old man who needs help.

Not the Wild West

It has always puzzled me that countries with socialist inclinations want to elevate a group of people solely because of an accident of birth and get sentimental about feudal costumes. When asked about this, Danes often respond that they couldn’t bear an American-style president. That seems like a straw man (granted, a scary one in its current incarnation). It may be reasonable to prefer a parliamentary system based on consensus and compromise to a strong, sometimes unpredictable executive branch, but parliamentary democracy doesn’t require a non-political head of state to formally sign the laws and entertain foreign dignitaries. The president of Germany is basically only a ceremonial figurehead no one has heard of. The Danes’ pride in the royal family must involve something visceral that supersedes political argument.

Others make a different comparison with the US, explaining the endurance of the royals by noting that there’s no Hollywood here and people need some celebrities for gossip fodder. You can turn that comparison around and say that if movie, music and sports stars are a sort of royalty, then a closer equivalent is reality TV stars, who like the royals gained their fame by chance more than merit. And of course today both of these bad alternatives have merged as reality TV has taken over the White House.

Insurrection

Only a few lonely Danish republicans want to abolish the institution. A couple of years ago, the intrepid columnist Anne Sofie Hermansen launched a debate on the issue, proposing that if it couldn’t be removed, the royal family should be financed by a voluntary tax, like the church tax. She was drowned out by a chorus of apologists whose strongest argument was simply that a majority of citizens wanted to keep it and didn’t mind the expense. About one third think they’re too expensive, but that means only that the shopping trips are getting too extravagant. Lately, with the proliferation of grandchildren, their allowances have been reduced.

But hardly anyone seems to feel it contradicts the fundamental principles of democracy and socialism. Even some on the far left, who aren’t satisfied by the highest marginal income tax rate in the world, won’t touch the third rail of the current figureheads’ entitlements. Some proponents maintain that the royals are a good investment as tourist bait and international trade reps, but Hermansen and others contest that claim. In any case, we’re unlikely to see the blue bloods sent out into the labor market to find gainful employment. In the worst case, they’ve probably hoarded enough of those tax revenues to slink away to Monaco and sip their cocktails in peace.

Only a sperm donor?

My pet theory is that in the most heavily taxed nation on earth, wasting some of those taxes to support one particular family in grand style demonstrates the nation’s surplus treasure. The embarrassing irony is that they’re more compelling and entertaining to follow when they act foolishly and waste taxpayers’ money – that is, they earn their keep by being unworthy of it. In this regard, Prince Henrik’s intransigent petulance succeeds wonderfully. He doesn’t even want to be buried in the land of égalité, so in forcing Denmark to find him a suitable alternative gravesite, he has managed to take his own future remains hostage. By disgracing the most solemn ceremony in the land, the monarch’s funeral, he highlights Denmark’s principled refusal to be cowed into crowning an interloper who has never even learned to speak the language quite fluently. Even though the heir apparent is half-French, Prince Henrik has unwittingly reinforced the integrity of the Danish tribe.

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