Proof that criminals can be rehabilitated

This goes to show you, even to most hardened criminals can be rehabilitated, when treated with respect and not like animals.

Video Link

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Beyond the Myth - Prison / Jail propaganda video

Video Link

Video Description:
Are jails and prisons one and the same, and what exactly is "community corrections?" With an emphasis on the role of jails in local communities, this video will answer those questions and more. It goes "beyond the myth" to reveal what corrections really is, what it is not, and the important role it plays in promoting public safety. The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons. It's mission is to provide training, information, and technical assistance to the nation's jails, prisons, and community corrections facilities.

Our Comments:
Don't you just love how they sugar coat it and make it look like it's some nice retreat or something?

This is NOTHING like real jails or prisons, it's merely propaganda! They'd never show you the reality!

And jails / prisons are not about corrections, rehabilitation or public "safety," they are about caging people and making a profit from those they lock up.

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CO - Complex sex offender system isn't working, say lawmakers and lawyers

Original Article

04/14/2013

By RYAN MAYE HANDY

When he was 22 years old in 2003, [name withheld #1] met a girl online. She was two months away from her 15th birthday, and he knew it.

Both were living in Colorado Springs, and after two months of chatting online, they met and had sex. The girl told [name withheld #1] that she had been sexually involved with men his age before, so he thought it was no big deal, he said.

“I kind of got myself into feeling I was her friend,” [name withheld #1] said. “If I said no, she was going to take that wrong.”

During the next couple of months, they had sex three or four times, and in June 2004, [name withheld #1] was arrested for sex assault on a child, after the girl’s parents discovered their relationship, [name withheld #1] said.

The arrest marked the beginning of a long, winding trip for [name withheld #1] through the correctional system, a trip determined by Colorado’s Lifetime Supervision Act of 1998.

Concern for public safety was at the heart of the act’s creation; it was designed to keep people convicted of the worst types of sex offenses behind bars, possibly for life, while using therapy to treat others with lesser offenses, allowing them to transition back into society and live under strict parole requirements.

But the system isn’t working as lawmakers intended.

The system has become an expensive way to warehouse sex offenders of all types, state lawmakers and lawyers say. Thousands of offenders, including [name withheld #1], are serving what are essentially life sentences in prison, where release on parole depends on the availability of money and treatment spots. Of the nearly 2,000 Colorado sex offenders sent to prison under the Lifetime Supervision Act, 168 have been released.

Costs for the treatment program are rising yearly, as more offenders require treatment and others are on a years-long waitlist, with a disproportionate amount of money supporting a relatively small prison population. A state-ordered study of the offender treatment program found that it is poorly funded and is staffed by therapists whose training is out of date and who use antiquated treatment techniques.

Without more money, Department of Corrections officials have said, the system bears little resemblance to the one lawmakers envisioned and is further threatened by the costs of lawsuits by prisoners desperate to get into the treatment program that is the key to their release.

Raising red flags

When the act was created in 1998, some lawyers immediately raised red flags, and many of the issues they predicted have come to fruition, corrections officials say. But changing the system would take more than money — it also would take a willingness to examine the way the state punishes and treats an unpopular type of offender, experts said.

“With the benefit of this hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have supported it, but back then, who knows?” Sen. Pat Steadman, head of the Joint Budget Committee, said of the act. “It’s hard to be rational and evidence-based when you are talking about sex offenders. It’s so easy to let the emotion and the fear and demonizing these guys rule the day in terms of how policy decisions get made. That’s unfortunate, and we need to try to avoid that.”

In April 2012, state lawmakers ordered a study of the sex offender treatment program that is mandated by the Lifetime Supervision Act. The findings, released Feb. 1, confirmed the most problematic aspects of the treatment program: It is inefficient, costly and poorly executed. The study showed that budget cuts have crippled the program’s effectiveness and that undertrained and often underqualified therapists, distrusted by offenders, base their treatment on outdated research.

The sentencing system for sex offenders can be fixed by two things, the report said: more money and new laws.

The Department of Corrections agrees. It says the Lifetime Supervision Act cannot work without millions more dollars to push hundreds of offenders through the system.

But plans to enact changes have been derailed by a busy General Assembly session — dominated by gun control and civil union bills — and the March shooting death of Tom Clements, Department of Corrections director.

The most crucial change to the sex offender treatment program, namely eliminating the mandate that every offender get treatment, requires a change in law and must wait until the next session, said Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, vice chairwoman of the Joint Budget Committee.

A work in progress

Victims of sex assault, their advocates and prosecutors say the Lifetime Supervision Act works. Sex offender treatment has helped reduce recidivism and provides a better alternative to letting offenders free in communities without supervision. Years in prison and rehabilitation is the price to pay, they say, for the harm done to sexual assault victims, who can face a lifetime of trauma.

Meanwhile, sex offenders desperate for freedom are suing the DOC. One class-action lawsuit questions the constitutionality of keeping sex offenders in prison. Without the funds to get offenders through treatment, the department expects it will be the target of several more lawsuits.

Two months after [name withheld #1]’s arrest, he was given a deferred sentence of four years and put on probation. Three months later, he violated his probationary restrictions and was sentenced to a Community Corrections program in Colorado Springs for two years. He spent more than two years going through treatment and probation programs, failing to meet the requirements each time.

Five years after meeting the girl online and after multiple probation failures, [name withheld #1] was given an indeterminate sentence, a minimum of two years to life in prison. Four years into his sentence, he is still in prison.

[name withheld #1] feels the effects of the tightening state corrections budget.

“I’m kind of at the back of the list right now,” he said in November. “It feels like a punishment for me. I bring it up in group (therapy).”

In desperation, [name withheld #1] and other offenders will do nearly anything to progress through treatment and get their tickets to freedom — even admit to crimes they did not commit, [name withheld #1] said. Sex offenders take a lie-detector test, which is meant to ferret out confessions to crimes they might have lied about in the past. [name withheld #1] continually fails the test — meaning, he must be lying, he said — and in frustration he has resorted to making up crimes and false confessions. The study of the treatment system confirmed that inmates have been known to deliberately lie on the test, called a polygraph.

“We have an expensive philosophy — if you don’t say you did it, then you’re going to stay in prison until you do,” said Laurie Rose Kepros, a public defender.

Penalties were largely unknown

When [name withheld #1] was first sentenced for his sex offense, he had never heard of the Lifetime Supervision Act. He had no idea that the sentences typically given for more serious crimes of pedophilia could eventually apply to him and give him years in prison.

Under the Lifetime Supervision Act, the term sex offender is broad and encompasses many offenses — some of which are punished more severely than they were before 1998. The act aims to put sex offenders through a heavily supervised and intense system of treatment, whether they are in prison or on probation. That has made the process — from court, to prison, to parole — more complicated.

A small percentage of sex offenders in Colorado are serial pedophiles or violent rapists who go straight to prison. Most convicted sex offenders, 70 percent, are like [name withheld #1]. They are convicted of consensual sex crimes with minors, for example, and are given probationary sentences.

Offenders with different crimes or differing contexts can get the same conviction. [name withheld #1], for instance, was convicted of sex assault on a child in a position of trust — one of the same counts brought against former Colorado Springs police officer [name withheld #2], who on Feb. 22 was sentenced to 70 years to life for molesting schoolchildren. But the context of [name withheld #2]’s and [name withheld #1]’s crimes were viewed differently by the court, and the men were given different sentences.

To tailor sentences to the crime, judges and lawyers study closely the context of the sex offense. Kepros, statewide director of sexual offense defense for the Colorado Public Defenders Office, and El Paso County Judge Tom Kennedy, among other lawyers and judges, said the system works best when an offender’s situation is closely considered. Unlike murder or manslaughter — convictions that carry a consistent sentence — a sex offense felony doesn’t necessarily send an offender straight to prison.

“For the majority of sex crimes, a person is probation-eligible,” said Kennedy, who serves on the Sex Offender Management Board, a group that oversees the prison treatment programs.

These sex offenders spend time in a Community Corrections sex offender treatment program or are sentenced to work duty. Offenders, even those on probation, face decades of state supervision. It is only when they violate the terms of their probation that they face a prison sentence. Whether on probation, in Community Corrections programs or in prison, sex offenders are part of the same group — regardless of the severity of their crime. They must register as sex offenders and often do treatment together, Kennedy said.

[name withheld #1]’s first probationary sentence was the result of a plea bargain — he told the court he was guilty in exchange for avoiding a possible life sentence.

But after [name withheld #1]’s repeated failures on probation, what he sought to avoid became his fate: He was given an indeterminate sentence.

Changing strategy

Indeterminate sentences are central to the Lifetime Supervision Act. Such sentences give prisoners a range of years they can serve in prison instead of a specific release date. Because of their potential severity, indeterminate sentences have changed the strategy of lawyers in the courtroom, Kennedy said.

“If I was a practicing attorney and I was having a client who was pleading guilty, you’d certainly have to advise them that they could spend time in prison,” he said.

Just one-quarter of sex offenders begin their sentences in prison. But because so few of them get out, the group dominates the population of lifetime offenders.

Since 1998, there have been 1,940 people sentenced to prison under the Lifetime Supervision Act, according to Colorado Judicial Department statistics released in January. Of those, 1,797 sex offenders are still in prison. There are more sex offenders in the Colorado Department of Corrections than prisoners serving a lifetime sentence for first-degree murder, at 831 offenders.

Because of the Lifetime Supervision Act, every sex offender sentenced under the act in Colorado is counted among those serving lifetime sentences. There are 2,474 prisoners in Colorado facing a maximum of life, and sex offenders make up almost exactly half of that group.

Far-reaching impact

The impact of the act stretches beyond the prison gates. Some sentences put offenders under intensive supervision for 10 to 20 years after their release from prison. They might be required to have regular — possibly daily — appointments with a probation officer and a mandatory profile on the sex offender registry, among other requirements.

Before the Lifetime Supervision Act, a person convicted of sex assault on a child in a position of trust, a class 3 felony, served a minimum of 12 years in prison. Today, an offender guilty of the same crime can receive a sentence of 12 years to life in prison. If that offender is paroled, he or she could spend at least 20 years under close state supervision.

The act was designed to keep perpetrators of violent sex crimes in prison for as long as possible. But many sex offenders across the spectrum, regardless of the severity of the crime, face long prison sentences and delayed access to treatment that is required for parole, defense attorneys and public defenders said.

Lifetime probation, parole in bill

Former state Rep. Norma Anderson, a Republican from Lakewood, sponsored the Lifetime Supervision Act.

“We cannot afford to keep them in jail or in prison for the rest of their life, and that’s not fair,” she said when she introduced the bill. “So, what this bill does — it does not change the sentencing requirements as already in law, but it does establish lifetime probation and lifetime parole.”

It was part of a national trend, said Peggy Heil of Denver, who has worked with sex offender treatment programs since before the bill passed.

“Back then in the United States, there was a trend in civil commitment laws,” Heil said last year. Civil commitment laws placed sex offenders in mental institutions instead of prison. In Kansas, the sex offender program required mental evaluations before offenders were paroled. Arizona instituted a program that placed sex offenders under state supervision, even after they were paroled.

Records of Colorado House Judiciary Committee meetings that year show the act was wildly popular, with representatives eager to place sex offenders behind bars for life. But attorneys who testified before the committee were apprehensive. While the bill considered the needs of pattern pedophiles, it didn’t make allowances for a lower class of sex offender, someone with a statutory rape or consensual sex charge, they argued.

Saskia Jordan, now a private defense attorney and former president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, predicted that the bill would present many complications.

“You will have people being sentenced to life sentences who, in the past, wouldn’t have … and the sentence may well be unduly harsh,” she told the committee.

Jordan was also concerned that the bill’s plan for parole was unrealistic; it wouldn’t allow inmates out until it could be assured they wouldn’t reoffend. No one can be certain that an offender won’t reoffend, Jordan said.

'No known cure'

When the sex offender treatment program was created, it centered on a “no known cure” principle — sex offending was seen as a disease that could be monitored and kept in check but never cured. The thinking has since changed due to offender complaints, and the program is seen as a tool that helps sex offenders control their behavior.

Erin Jemison, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sex Assault, said the benefits of the Lifetime Supervision Act far outweigh its problems. Offenders who violate probation need the prison environment to take treatment seriously, Jemison said.

“It’s hard for me to be convinced that the guy who is in prison is the guy who made one mistake,” Jemison said.

Victims of sex assault experience a lifetime of trauma, said Doug Cohen, an assistant district attorney in Jefferson County who was formerly an assistant district attorney in Colorado Springs.

“When the defendant was committing the crime, did they think about the fact that they were submitting the victim to an indeterminate life sentence?” Cohen said.

“I think in a lot of ways, they (victims) may just be left out there after a certain amount of time to fend for themselves. (That’s the) unanswered problem — like I said, their sentences are indeterminate,” Cohen said.

Anderson was inspired to champion the act after a close family friend was sexually assaulted. While she acknowledged that many offenders object to the system she helped create, Anderson contended that they cannot understand a victim’s pain.

“I guess they haven’t had a family member who’s had to live their lives under the burden of a sex offense,” she said in November 2011.

Considering a fix

In April 2012, lawmakers began looking into how to fix the Lifetime Supervision Act. Their move came after another budget request from the DOC for more funds for its treatment program. Lawmakers ordered an independent audit to examine how well the sex offender treatment program is working.

“We really did not want to continue investment in treatment programs that weren’t working, that weren’t evidence-based, that weren’t getting the results we want,” said Steadman, who as chairman of the House Joint Budget Committee commissioned the report. “We don’t want to just warehouse these guys in prison for the rest of their lives.”

The report’s findings echo many of [name withheld #1]’s and other inmates’ complaints about the treatment they receive in prison.

[name withheld #1] said he dislikes the “one size fits all” style of treatment, where offenders with vastly different crimes are treated together. That’s something the report harshly criticized as well. Because of this philosophy, a portion of low-risk offenders are being “over treated,” the report said. The limited treatment slots should be saved for high-risk offenders, the report said, while offenders such as [name withheld #1] should be on the fast-track to get out of prison and finish treatment outside.

And a lack of money means that therapists aren’t well trained, the report said. Training for new therapists is sporadic and inefficient and relies on out-of-date techniques. Therapists isolate the offenders, making them feel like monsters, [name withheld #1] said. Therapists are often quick to discipline, sometimes unfairly, [name withheld #1] claims. He said he doesn’t trust his therapists and like other offenders fears retaliation from them, particularly if they admit to disliking the treatment program. The report also noted and criticized the inmates’ fear of their therapists.

“There tends to be corner cutting and drift away from therapeutic models,” the report said.

Judge: Program sets up failure

In 2004, after [name withheld #1] was arrested and sent to court for the first time, he pleaded guilty to sex assault on a child in exchange for a deferred sentence of four years, which meant probation. He didn’t take it seriously, he said. He was late for some appointments with his probation officer, he missed some urinary analysis tests, and he still used the Internet — all of which ended his probation and sent him back to court.

Of all the probation programs for offenders, sex offender probation is the toughest, said Angel Weant, a probation services liaison officer for the Colorado Judicial Department. Although most offenders, roughly 70 percent, start with probation, many end up in prison. Kennedy, the judge, said the program’s challenges set many up for failure.

“It’s very demanding, so many people who initially get a probationary sentence will fail,” he said.

After [name withheld #1] violated his first probation sentence, he had to move out of his parents’ home because his young niece was living with them. He was given two years in Community Corrections, a state-run program that provides treatment to offenders, with a 10-years-to-life probation sentence afterward.

[name withheld #1] finished the Community Corrections program, but as before, he flouted some restrictions. He dated a woman, and in 2006, they went to the annual Balloon Glo at Memorial Park, where [name withheld #1] bumped into his probation officer. Events like the Balloon Glo, teeming with children, are prohibited for someone with [name withheld #1]’s history. He was sentenced to another four-year stint with Community Corrections but was kicked out after six months because he continued to see his girlfriend and his family members, he said. Like many sex offenders, [name withheld #1] said he did not understand the severity of a lifetime offense until it looked him squarely in the face. [name withheld #1] also said he felt that his punishment did not fit his crime: He was originally sentenced because of his interactions with a 14-year-old, and with no history of pedophilia, he did not understand why he should be barred from interacting with adult women or young children.

'Toughest' program

Sex offender treatment specialists consider sex assault a manipulative crime, where victims are coerced into keeping silent and trusting their perpetrators. And sex offenses are widely recognized as some of the most under-reported crimes; probationary restrictions attempt to assiduously control whom offenders come in contact with to prevent them from reoffending, judges and victims advocates say.

The intensive program for sex offenders is “probably the toughest that a person could be under,” for good reason, Kennedy said.

Allison Boyd, a victims advocate for Jefferson County, said most offenders fail probation because it does not provide the same motivation as a potential lifetime sentence in prison.

“(In many cases), sex offenders start out on probation, where they appear remorseful and want to change. But once they start, this is not the path they choose. They don’t choose to change their behavior,” Boyd said.

Offenders who violate the terms of a probationary sentence deserve what they get: prison, said Jemison, the director of Colorado Coalition Against Sex Assault. She doesn’t buy the argument that inmates are being held for unjustifiably long sentences — if they’ve ended up in prison, it was because their offenses were serious or they repeatedly violated probation, Jemison said.

“It’s hard for me to be convinced that the guy who is in prison is the guy who made one mistake,” she said.

For many sex offenders, the restrictions of probation often seem incongruous with their crimes, said Laurie Knight, a sex offender therapist who worked for Adams County Social Services for two decades.

For a man such as [name withheld #1], whose initial crime involved a teenage girl, dating an adult woman or attending an event with children younger than 10 might not seem like an issue, Knight said.

But the rules are determined by research, Knight said. Research shows that one sex offending behavior can stem from another — even if [name withheld #1] had no sexual history involving children younger than 15, his one-time attraction to a minor means he runs a higher risk.

“People who come into the system rarely only committed a crime they’ve got caught for. Sixty percent of adult rapists have also molested children,” Knight said.

The strict probation system isn’t perfect, Knight said, but the probationary rules aren’t the problem.

“It’s how the rules are implemented. Every probation (program) has a different culture,” she said.

Her solution for offenders such as [name withheld #1] is simple: “Get out and stay out.”

But in 2008, after violating the conditions of two probationary sentences, [name withheld #1] was sentenced to serve two years to life in Fremont Correctional Facility outside Cañon City.

The ticket to freedom

For sex offenders, a smooth passage through sex offender treatment programs while on probation or in prison is often their ticket to freedom.

To be considered for parole, offenders must start and finish treatment programs in prison, including taking lie-detector tests, called polygraphs, and meticulously recalling and discussing their personal sexual histories. Both are meant to ensure honesty from offenders, a key in their treatment, according to the program philosophy.

An inability to finish the second of two phases of treatment has kept [name withheld #1] in prison past his parole date. For more than a year, he has failed polygraphs and stalled in his treatment. He has now given up hope that he’ll be paroled.

Glenice [name withheld #1] has watched her son fail repeatedly in the treatment programs; she is frustrated, too. She is one of the founding members of Advocates for Change, a group working on behalf of sex offenders. The members are mostly mothers or spouses, who keep in touch with offenders and push legislators to change the Lifetime Supervision Act. While treatment might have helped [name withheld #1]’s son, she now thinks it is past the point of doing any good.

“He’s learned a lot about himself. But once you get to a certain point, it’s like beating a dead horse,” she said in late 2011. “They (sex offenders) made a really bad choice. To spend your life behind bars for something like that is ridiculous.”

Trouble with treatment

Sex offender treatment is a contentious subject for therapists and offenders — and it’s expensive.

Sex offenders complain that treatment casts them as hopeless and helpless monsters, with no hope of change. Therapists have adopted various philosophies of treatment — at one point, they treated offenders as if they suffered from incurable diseases, while other therapists believe sex offending is a choice.

Once in prison, offenders are put on a list to get into the treatment program. The program’s philosophy is based on helping sex offenders control their behaviors, said Heil, who heads the program for the Department of Corrections.

“Sex offending is a behavior. What treatment can do is teach people how to manage the problems that lead to their offending,” Heil said.

[name withheld #1] and other offenders said they dislike their therapists and have resorted to lying on polygraphs out of desperation to pass them.

The audit confirmed that offenders are often terminated from treatment too quickly or easily. The program has a notoriously high termination rate, inmates said. Offenders can be bumped out of the program for disciplinary issues or for being what inmates call “in denial” of their crime. In 2011, more than 90 percent of the offenders in the first phase of treatment were terminated, for various reasons.

Still, a few offenders have extracted some good from their treatment. [name withheld #1], who said he considers himself an introvert, said he has gained confidence.

Nonetheless, as he struggles to get through Phase II, [name withheld #1] has given up. After more than a year in prison keeping a low profile and cooperating with his therapists, [name withheld #1] continued to fail multiple polygraphs, which he was counting on to help him pass out of Phase II and get one step closer to parole.

[name withheld #1] said he remained frustrated, even as signs of change trickled into the prison. Last fall, auditors visited Fremont Correctional Facility, where [name withheld #1] is serving his time, and interviewed inmates, giving them a rare chance to vent their frustrations in privacy.

“The hope around here is that they’ll make some changes,” [name withheld #1] said.

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Prisons are a joke! They could stop the violence, if they wanted to!

Prisons are a joke! If they wanted to end the violence, they could, but they don't want to. It's their (Guards) form of sick entertainment. They should segregate people into groups, by race, affiliation, crime, etc, then the violence would be almost eliminated. Anybody who has been in prison can tell you, a lot of the violence in prison is due to corrupt guards or not segregating people, letting rival gangs out together, etc. (More Videos)

WARNING: DISTURBING IMAGES, DISCRETION ADVISED!

Everybody knows we have a online registry for ex-sex offenders who have one of the lowest recidivism rates of all criminals, yet people in the next video, who are extremely violent, are not on any list so you can protect yourself. Why is that? I'd rather live next to any ex-sex offender instead of the people in this next video.

WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC, DISCRETION ADVISED!

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Flikshop - How it works

Website

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Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System

Original Article

Everyone, in our opinion, should take their case to trial and not accept a plea deal, which they WILL offer you, after scaring you to death about long prison terms, etc, but, make sure you have a good lawyer, and one who explains everything, even the ramifications of being convicted or not. They will always offer you some plea deal, so they can push you through the system faster and they can move on to their next victim. Take it to trial!

03/10/2012

By MICHELLE ALEXANDER

After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”

The woman was Susan Burton, who knows a lot about being processed through the criminal justice system.

Her odyssey began when a Los Angeles police cruiser ran over and killed her 5-year-old son. Consumed with grief and without access to therapy or antidepressant medications, Susan became addicted to crack cocaine. She lived in an impoverished black community under siege in the “war on drugs,” and it was but a matter of time before she was arrested and offered the first of many plea deals that left her behind bars for a series of drug-related offenses. Every time she was released, she found herself trapped in an under-caste, subject to legal discrimination in employment and housing.

Fifteen years after her first arrest, Susan was finally admitted to a private drug treatment facility and given a job. After she was clean she dedicated her life to making sure no other woman would suffer what she had been through. Susan now runs five safe homes for formerly incarcerated women in Los Angeles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, supplies a lifeline for women released from prison. But it does much more: it is also helping to start a movement. With groups like All of Us or None, it is organizing formerly incarcerated people and encouraging them to demand restoration of their basic civil and human rights.

I was stunned by Susan’s question about plea bargains because she — of all people — knows the risks involved in forcing prosecutors to make cases against people who have been charged with crimes. Could she be serious about organizing people, on a large scale, to refuse to plea-bargain when charged with a crime?

“Yes, I’m serious,” she flatly replied.

I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel.

But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.

“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged.

In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

No wonder, then, that most people waive their rights. Take the case of Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two who was arrested at age 30 in a drug sweep in Hearne, Tex., in 2000. In jail, with no one to care for her two young children, she began to panic. Though she maintained her innocence, her court-appointed lawyer told her to plead guilty, since the prosecutor offered probation. Ms. Stewart spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Then her real punishment began: upon her release, Ms. Stewart was saddled with a felony record; she was destitute, barred from food stamps and evicted from public housing. Once they were homeless, Ms. Stewart’s children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she lost everything even though she took the deal.

On the phone, Susan said she knew exactly what was involved in asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. “Believe me, I know. I’m asking what we can do. Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?”

The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”

Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash — it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid.

In telling Susan that she was right, I found myself uneasy. “As a mother myself, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t plead guilty to if a prosecutor told me that accepting a plea was the only way to get home to my children,” I said. “I truly can’t imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk — even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?”

Susan, silent for a while, replied: “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m saying we ought to know that it’s an option. People should understand that simply exercising their rights would shake the foundations of our justice system which works only so long as we accept its terms. As you know, another brutal system of racial and social control once prevailed in this country, and it never would have ended if some people weren’t willing to risk their lives. It would be nice if reasoned argument would do, but as we’ve seen that’s just not the case. So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives.”

Michelle Alexander is the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”

Video Link

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NC - Inmates forced to rub habanero pepper sauce on testicles, kiss snakes

Original Article

This just goes to show you how deep the corruption goes. Every one of those involved should go to prison and be forced to live with the "sex offender" label, since sex was involved. Kind of reminds you of the Stanford prison experiment, or the Milgram experiment (Videos below).

12/04/2012

By David Edwards

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to open an investigation after six inmates claimed that guards forced them to burn their genitals with hot pepper sauce, perform simulated sex acts and kiss snakes.

N.C. Department of Public Safety spokesperson Pamela Walker told The Associated Press on Monday that one Sampson Correctional Institution staff member went on leave and another was reassigned after inmates sent a letter the U.S. District Court in Greensboro alleging civil rights violations.

The six inmates claimed that they had been forced to entertain correctional staff by pretending to have sex with each other while nude and perform other humiliating acts.

“The inmates also reported being forced to gulp a super-hot ‘Exotic Hot Sauce’ purchased off the Internet and slather it on their testicles, as well as being forced to grab and kiss wild snakes while working on a road crew and throwing captured bunnies in to oncoming traffic,” The AP reported.

Inmates who cooperated said they were rewarded with better work assignments, food, alcohol and tobacco. Both alcohol and tobacco products are prohibited in North Carolina prisons.

“[Division of Adult Correction] considers the allegations to be serious and the alleged actions in violation of policy, which warrants further review by management,” Walker said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joi Elizabeth Peake agreed on Nov. 19 to accept the inmates’ letter for a formal civil rights action, but said that the complaint would have to be re-filed in federal court in Raleigh.

On Tuesday, Walker announced that Sampson Correctional Institution administrator Lafayette Hall had been suspended with leave pending an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Stanford Prison Experiment:

Video Link

Milgram Experiment:

Video Link

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NJ - "Sneak Peak, Part 1: Exposing a Hidden Reality." A Film by Omar Broadway

Video Description:
Omar Broadway secretly obtained a video camera while serving time in the high-security gang unit at Northern State Prison in Newark, New Jersey, where inmates are allowed out of their cells only a few hours a week. He used it to document his life on the inside. This film was given to Bonnie Kerness at the American Friends Service Comittee's Prison Watch Project, who is making it available via Solitary Watch.

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Video Link | YouTube Channel

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UK - Serious sex offenders neglected by prison service, report finds

Original Article

10/11/2012

By Alan Travis

Report by chief inspector of prisons criticises conditions and rehabilitation efforts at Wakefield high security institution

Little or no effective work is being done with some of the most serious sex offenders behind bars, the chief inspector of prisons says in a report published on Friday.

Nick Hardwick says in the report that almost half the 750 men held at Wakefield high security prison, many of whom are serious sex offenders, are in denial about their crimes, and there are no programmes at the jail to tackle their behaviour.

His report criticises the decision to concentrate so many men who refuse to take responsibility for their crimes at Wakefield, and points out that accepted expert opinion is that useful work can be done even with men in complete denial.

The inspection, which took place in May, also criticised conditions in Wakefield's close supervision centre (CSC), which holds seven of the country's most dangerous prisoners. It found the gated, cage-like cells in the centre to be small and stark with limited natural light.

"The unscreened toilets were located directly in front of observation panels," the report says. "Exercise yards consisted of bare, individual cages. There was some exercise equipment in a separate room. Limited education and visits could take place in a closed visits-style room in which a reinforced window separated the prisoner from whoever was speaking to him. Most of the men had lived in these conditions for about three years; one for as long as 11 years."

The inspectors said the failure to do much effective work with those in denial about their crimes risked entrenching negative attitudes and undermining the work done with those prisoners who did admit to the need to change.

"The prison service should consider whether it is right to place such a concentration of men in denial in one establishment. That does not reduce the responsibility of HMP Wakefield itself to do some work with these men. There is now expert opinion that it is possible to make some useful interventions even with men who are in complete denial, and the prison should be attempting to prepare and motivate men to change," the report says.

Hardwick said it was no surprise in such conditions that progress in rehabilitating men at Wakefield was often slow and small advances required enormous effort.

"The prison is stable and generally safe but more management attention is required across a number of high-risk areas such as self-harm prevention, segregation and the CSC. The need to occupy the prisoners more fully and purposefully remains unaddressed," he said.

Michael Spurr, the head of the national offender management service, said he recognised the concerns raised in the report.

"It is not unusual or surprising that prisoners serving long sentences deny or minimise their offence, particularly those with sexual offences who may deny their guilt due to shame or fears about status and family support," he said.

"However, staff will need to continue to work with offenders throughout their whole sentence to motivate them to address their offending and to reduce their risk."

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KS - Abuse of inmates is ‘rampant’ at Kansas women’s prison

Original Article

09/06/2012

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA - Sexual misconduct and abuse of inmates at Kansas’ prison for women is “rampant throughout the facility” and persisted even as federal officials investigated problems there, according to a U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday.
- So ask yourself this, if it's rampant, which we believe it is for all states, why are we not seeing in the news where tons of officers/guards are being arrested and put on the sex offender registry?  Are they being protected?  We think so!

The department’s Civil Rights Division concluded that Kansas failed to deal adequately with problems at the Topeka Correctional Facility after the National Institute of Corrections recommended more than two dozen changes in January 2010 and the prison’s top administrator was reassigned.

The report also cited a shortage of female officers and said the prison’s policies and staffing are inadequate.

The Justice Department launched its investigation in April 2011. The findings were reported to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter Thursday from Thomas Perez, the assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights.

The letter warned that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder could file a lawsuit if the department does not believe Kansas is properly resolving the problems by late October.

“We conclude that TCF fails to protect women prisoners from harm due to sexual abuse and misconduct from correctional staff and other prisoners in violation of their constitutional rights,” Perez said in his letter. “The women at TCF universally fear for their own safety.”

Department of Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay said the agency is reviewing the Justice Department’s report and would comment later.

In 2010, the state increased the penalties for staff having sex with inmates, requiring prison time. Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts conducted an internal investigation after Brownback appointed him and in April 2011 announced that 100 new security cameras and new policies had been put in place.
- What about being placed on the sex offender registry for life, like everyone else?

In June, Brownback and legislative leaders agreed to have the state pay $30,000 to a former Topeka Correctional Facility inmate who was forced by an officer into having sex in 2008. The officer had pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual relations and was placed on probation.
- Was he/she also placed on the sex offender registry for life and fired?  Probably not!

The Justice Department letter lists 21 steps it expects the Department of Corrections and the prison to take. They included enforcing a “zero tolerance” policy against sexual abuse and a policy to prevent any employee, contractor or volunteer suspected of sexual misconduct from having contact with inmates until an investigation is completed.
- So you say sexual abuse, but what about consensual sex?  Are you saying that is okay?

Potential problems at the prison were highlighted by the Topeka Capital-Journal in a series of stories in 2009. The newspaper reported that inmates and staff said as many as one-third of the prison’s 250 employees had been involved with an illegal black market that included exchanging drugs for sex with female inmates.

As of Wednesday, the prison housed 684 inmates.

“They live in a highly charged sexual environment with repeated and open sexual behavior, including sexual relations between staff and prisoners and non-consensual sexual conduct between the female prisoners, open and notorious sex parties, and public nudity,” Perez’s letter said.
- All of which should be banned and anyone who does this, should be convicted of a sex crime and put on the registry like everyone else.

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CA - Is the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying it's okay for guards to have sex with inmates, as long as it's consensual?

Original Article

09/06/2012

By Bob Egelko

The balance of power between prisoners and their overseers is pretty one-sided in favor of the overseers. When an inmate accuses a guard of sexual harassment, a federal appeals court says, the guard must be prepared to prove that whatever happened was with the inmate’s consent.
- Why should consent matter?  It should be illegal, period!

As the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put it this week, “because of the enormous power imbalance between prisoners and prison guards, labeling a prisoner’s decision to engage in sexual conduct in prison as ‘consent’ is a dubious proposition.”

The San Francisco-based court reinstated a lawsuit by inmate [name withheld] against the Idaho prison system and a former guard named Sandra de Martin. According to the ruling, [name withheld], who is serving a life sentence for murder, said Martin “pursued” him after she was assigned to his unit in 2002. They developed what he described as a romantic but non-sexual relationship.

A few months later, [name withheld] said he started hearing rumors that Martin was married, which bothered him because he had become strongly religious while in prison. She denied being married, but he asked her to stay away. Twenty minutes later, he said, she entered his cell and put her hand on his groin, and he pushed her away.

He said the guard did the same thing another time after a series of what he described as aggressive pat searches, despite his attempts to end the relationship. He finally filed a complaint with a prison officer and was transferred to another prison. [name withheld]’s lawyer said the allegations did not result in any disciplinary action against Martin, who has since left the prison system.

[name withheld]’s lawsuit claimed he had been subjected to harassment that violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, since it was inflicted by a prison guard. But U.S. District Judge William Shubb dismissed the suit, saying the alleged groping was part of a “consensual relationship” rather than involuntary harassment.

The appeals court had a different perspective. Prisoners have little control over their daily lives, the court said, and depend on prison employees for basic necessities. A guard’s power over an inmate has been compared to the power of an adult over a child, or even of a master over a slave, the court said. At the same time, ”sexual abuse in prison is prolific,” the court said, and most often involves a female guard and a male prisoner, according to government statistics.
- So are they also saying we still have slaves and masters?  Any guard who has sex with or sexually abuses someone in prison/jail, should be arrested and thrown in prison/jail and on the sex offender registry, period.  Sexual abuse is sexual abuse!  And from the above, most sex crimes in prison are due to female guards, and I am willing to bet that many, if not most, sex crimes on the outside are by females as well, but most are not reported because of the double standards.

In the typical sexual harassment case, it’s up to the plaintiff to prove that he or she objected to the sexual conduct. In a prison setting, the court said, sexual contact by a guard with an inmate will be presumed to be unwelcome, and it will be up to the guard to prove consent. In this case, [name withheld]’s allegations, if true, would show that he did not consent, and he is entitled to take his suit to trial, the court said. Judge Betty Fletcher wrote the 3-0 ruling, which can be viewed here (PDF).
- Like we've said, why must anybody prove consent?  It should be illegal, period!

The ruling is “very important in terms of protecting prisoners,” said [name withheld]’s lawyer, Thomas Saunders. Although the facts have yet to be established — both [name withheld] and Martin took polygraph tests and passed, Saunders said — the inmate has “strong evidence of non-consent” and hopes a jury will vindicate his rights.

Prison officials could appeal the ruling. Their lawyers were unavailable for comment.

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Federal Prison Guidebook

Original Article

08/29/2012

By Todd Bussert

I am pleased to announce my involvement with the 2012-2014 edition of Alan Ellis’s Federal Prison Guidebook, which is now available through James Publishing. Among other things, this edition of the Guidebook offers a new, comprehensive chapter concerning the federal Bureau of Prisons’ 500-hour drug abuse program (RDAP) as well as a chapter devoted to pre-release placement, both halfway house (RRC) and home confinement, in the wake of the Second Chance Act. More information about all that the Guidebook offers can be found here.

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Nation of Criminals - Selling Prisons "for profit"

Original Article

Below is only the first of many videos on this subject. Click the link above to see all the videos.

For decades, Washington has been adding to the number of federal laws and regulations that carry criminal penalties. Now the number is so high, no one is actually sure how many there are.

Experts say practically anyone could be convicted of some sort of federal crime. And it’s all too easy for anyone to violate one of these laws and never know it. One congressman tells CBN News, “We have made it dangerous just to be alive in America.”

SELLING PRISONS "FOR PROFIT"

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AL - DOJ Looking Into Ala. Prison Sex Abuse Claims

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Time Served - The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms

Original Article

06/06/2012

By Stephanie Bosh

Quick Summary:
The length of time served in prison has increased markedly over the last two decades, according to a new study by Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project. Prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990.

Over the past 40 years, criminal justice policy in the U.S. was shaped by the belief that the best way to protect the public was to put more people in prison. Offenders, the reasoning went, should spend longer and longer time behind bars.

Consequently, offenders have been spending more time in prison. According to a new study by Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project, the length of time served in prison has increased markedly over the last two decades. Prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990.

Those extended prison sentences came at a price: prisoners released from incarceration in 2009 cost states $23,300 per offender--or a total of over $10 billion nationwide. More than half of that amount was for non-violent offenders.

The report, Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms, also found that time served for drug offenses and violent offenses grew at nearly the same pace from 1990 to 2009. Drug offenders served 36 percent longer in 2009 than those released in 1990, while violent offenders served 37 percent longer. Time served for inmates convicted of property crimes increased by 24 percent.

Almost all states increased length of stay over the last two decades, though that varied widely from state to state. In Florida, for example, where time served rose most rapidly, prison terms grew by 166 percent and cost an extra $1.4 billion in 2009.

A companion analysis Pew conducted in partnership with external researchers found that many non-violent offenders in Florida, Maryland and Michigan could have served significantly shorter prison terms with little or no public safety consequences.

The report also summarizes recent public opinion polling that shows strong support nationwide for reducing time served for non-violent offenders.

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation.

Related Documents:

• Full Report (PDF)
• State Fact Sheets

Video Link

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Prison in America - By Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Original Article

06/05/2012

By Richard Branson

A New York Times op-ed drew our attention to a remarkable piece of journalism from the Times-Picayune, the big paper in the American state of Louisiana. The eight-part series chronicles how Louisiana became the prison capital of America, and therefore of the world.

Prison in America has shockingly come to echo the days of slave plantations. Like cotton and sugarcane operations, prisons now make profits by taking away people’s liberty. In Louisiana, the series says, three drug convictions can land someone in prison for life, two car robberies can earn 24 years. Each of those prisoners is a long-term cash cow for the owners of private prisons (many of whom are also local sheriffs according to the series). Rehabilitation leading to release would just take away the per-prisoner revenue. So “inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens.”

No wonder “Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's” - in most societies, locking people up is costly. In America, it’s profitable. It is perverse, dehumanizing and devastating communities. If we want to do some good through privatization, why not privatize rehabilitation with bonuses for successful reintegration of inmates who don’t re-offend? Then private sector creativity would be channeled to help rather than bleed society.

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NORWAY - Welcome to the world's nicest prison

Original Article

This is what the America concentration camps (prisons) need to be. Prison is suppose to be about rehabilitation, not just locking someone up and forgetting about them, that doesn't do anything.

05/24/2012

By John D. Sutter

Bastoy (CNN) -- Jan Petter Vala, who is serving a prison sentence for murder, has hands the size of dinner plates and shoulders like those of an ox. In an alcoholic rage, he used his brutish strength to strangle his girlfriend to death a few years ago.

On a recent Thursday, however, at this summer-camp-like island prison in southern Norway, where convicts hold keys to their rooms and there are no armed guards or fences, Vala used those same enormous hands to help bring life into the world.

The 42-year-old murderer stood watch while an oversize cow gave birth to a wobbly, long-legged, brown-and-white calf. He cried as the baby was born, he said, and wiped slime off of the newborn's face so she could gulp her first breath.

Afterward, Vala called his own mother to share the good news.

"I told my family that I'm going to be a dad," he said, beaming with pride.

This is exactly the type of dramatic turnabout -- enraged killer to gentle-giant midwife -- that corrections officials in Norway hope to create with this controversial, one-of-a-kind prison, arguably the cushiest the world has to offer.

Founded in 1982, Bastoy Prison is located on a lush, 1-square-mile island of pine trees and rocky coasts, with views of the ocean that are postcard-worthy. It feels more like a resort than jail, and prisoners here enjoy freedoms that would be unthinkable elsewhere.

It's the holiday version of Alcatraz.

Overheard on CNN.com: What's prison for?

There's a beach where prisoners sunbathe in the summer, plenty of good fishing spots, a sauna and tennis courts. Horses roam gravel roads. Some of the 115 prisoners here -- all men and serving time for murder, rape and trafficking heroin, among other crimes -- stay in wooden cottages, painted cheery red. They come and go as they please. Others live in "The Big House," a white mansion on a hill that, on the inside, looks like a college dorm. A chicken lives in the basement, a guard said, and provides eggs for the inmates.

When you ask the cook what's for dinner, he offers up menu choices like "fish balls with white sauce, with shrimps" and "everything from chicken con carne to salmon."

Plenty of people would pay to vacation in a place like this.

On first read, all of that probably sounds infuriating. Shouldn't these men be punished? Why do they get access to all these comforts while others live in poverty?

But if the goal of prison is to change people, Bastoy seems to work.

"If we have created a holiday camp for criminals here, so what?" asked Arne Kvernvik Nilsen, the prison's governor and a former minister and psychologist. He added, "We should reduce the risk of reoffending, because if we don't, what's the point of punishment, except for leaning toward the primitive side of humanity?"

Take a quick look at the numbers: Only 20% of prisoners who come through Norway's prisons reoffend within two years of being released, according to a 2010 report commissioned by the governments of several Nordic countries.

At Bastoy, that figure is even lower, officials say: about 16%.

Compare that with the three-year re-offense rate for state prisons in the U.S.: 43%, according to a 2011 report from the Pew Center on the States, a nonpartisan research group. Older government reports put that number even higher, at more than five in 10.

Ryan King, a research director at Pew and an author of the group's recent report, said it's difficult to compare recidivism rates from state to state, much less from country to country. Instead of focusing on the numbers, he said, one should focus on what a country is or isn't doing to tackle re-offense rates.

Still, Bastoy remains controversial even in academia. Irvin Waller, president of the International Organization for Victim Assistance and a professor at the University of Ottawa, said in an e-mail that the relative niceness of a prison has no effect on whether people commit crimes when they're released. "The key is not that much what happens in prison but what happens when the men are released," he said.

But officials here maintain that their methods do make a difference, and they follow it up with post-release programs. The aim of Bastoy is not to punish or seek revenge, Nilsen said. The only punishment is to take away the prisoner's right to be a free member of society.

Even at a time when Anders Behring Breivik is on trial in Norway for killing 77 people in a terror attack last year -- and the remote possibility he could end up at Bastoy or a similar prison some day -- Nilsen and others stand up for this brand of justice.

Life at Bastoy

To understand Norway's pleasant-prison philosophy, first you have to get a sense of how life at a cushy, low-security prison like Bastoy actually plays out.

There are few rules here. Prisoners can have TVs in their rooms, provided they bring them from "outside" when they're sentenced. They wear whatever clothes they want: jeans, T-shirts. One man had a sweater with pink-and-gray horizontal stripes, but that's as close as it got to the jailbird look. Even guards aren't dressed in uniform, which makes conducting interviews tricky. It's impossible to tell an officer from a drug trafficker.

A common opening question: "So, do you live here?"

Everyone at Bastoy has a job, and prisoners must report to work from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays. Some people garden; others farm. Some chop down trees and slice them into firewood (It's hard not to think about the wood chipper scene in "Fargo" when you see inmates filleting tree trunks with an enormous circular saw). Others tend to a team of horses, which are used to cart wood and supplies from one part of the island to another. Everyone moves about freely during these tasks. Guards are sometimes present, sometimes not. No one wears shackles or electronic monitoring bracelets.

The idea is for prison to function like a small, self-sustaining village.

For their work, inmates are paid. They get a stipend of 59 Norwegian kroner per day, about $10. They can save that money or spend it on odds and ends in a local shop. Additionally, they get a monthly stipend of about $125 for their food. Kitchen workers -- that's another inmate job -- serve Bastoy residents dinner each day. For breakfast and lunch, inmates use their stipend to make purchases in the local shop and then cook for themselves at home. Many live in small houses that have full kitchens. Others have access to shared cooking space.

The goal, Nilsen said, is to create an environment where people can build self-esteem and reform their lives. "They look at themselves in the mirror, and they think, 'I am s***. I don't care. I am nothing,' " he said. This prison, he says, gives them a chance to see they have worth, "to discover, 'I'm not such a bad guy.' "

In locked-down prisons, inmates are treated "like animals or robots," he said, moving from one planned station to the next, with no choice in the matter. Here, inmates are forced to make choices -- to learn how to be better people.

Prisoners, of course, appreciate this approach.

Kjell Amundsen, a 70-year-old who said he is in jail for a white-collar financial crime, was terrified when he rode the 15-minute ferry from the mainland out to Bastoy.

On a recent afternoon, he was sweeping up in a plant nursery while John Lennon's "Imagine" played on the radio. "I think it's marvelous to be in a prison this way," he said.

He plans to keep up the task after his sentence ends. "I'm living in a flat (when I get out), but I am convinced I should have a little garden," he said.

Some prisoners get schooling in a yellow Bavarian-style building near the center of the island. On a recent afternoon, three young men were learning to use computer programs to create 3-D models of cars. All expressed interest in doing this sort of work after their prison terms end.

Tom Remi Berg, a 22-year-old who said he is in prison for the third time after getting into a bar fight and beating a man nearly to death, said he is finally learning his lesson at Bastoy.

He works in the kitchen and is seeking training to become a chef when he's released. He also plays in the prison blues band -- Guilty as Hell -- and lives with his bandmates.

"It's good to have a prison like this," he said. "You can learn to start a new page again."

If escaped, please call

The prisoners are required to check in several times a day so guards can make sure they're still on the island. Nothing but 1½ miles of seawater stops them from leaving; they'd only have to steal one of the prison's boats to cross it, several inmates said.

An escape would be relatively easy.

Prisoners have tried to escape in the past. One swam halfway across the channel and became stranded on a buoy and screamed for rescuers to help, prison officials said. Another made it across the channel by stealing a boat but was caught on the other side.

Many, however, don't want to leave. If they tried and failed, they would be forced to go to a higher-security prison and could have their sentences extended.

When inmates come to his island jail, Nilsen, the governor, gives them a little talk.

Among the wisdom he imparts is this: If you should escape and make it across the water to the free shore, find a phone and call so I know you're OK and "so we don't have to send the coast guard looking for you."

This kind of trust may seem shocking or naïve from the outside, but it's the entire basis for Bastoy's existence. Overnight, only three or four guards (the prison employs 71 administrative staff, including the guards) stay on the island with this group of people who have been convicted of serious crimes. If guards carried weapons (which they don't) it might encourage inmates to take up arms, too, he said.

Further complicating the security situation, some inmates, toward the end of their terms, are allowed to leave the island on a daily ferry to work or attend classes on the mainland.

They're expected to come back on their own free will.

Inmates are screened to make sure they're mentally stable and unlikely to plot an escape before they come to Bastoy. The vast majority -- 97%, according to Nilsen -- have served part of their sentences at higher-security jails in Norway. In the four years Nilsen has been heading up the prison, there have been no "serious" incidents of violence, he said.

By the time they get to Bastoy, inmates view the island as a relief.

'It's still prison'

There's a question inmates here get asked frequently: When your sentence is up, will you want to leave?

The answer, despite the nice conditions, is always an emphatic yes.

"It's still prison," said Luke, 23. He didn't want his full name used for fear future employers would see it. "In your mind, you are locked (up)."

The simple fact of being taken away from family members is enough to stop Benny, 40, from wanting to offend again. The refugee from Kosovo said he was convicted on drug charges after he was found with 13 pounds of heroin. He didn't want his full name used because he doesn't want to embarrass his family or jeopardize his chance of finding a job after he's released.

Before coming to Bastoy, he sat in a higher-security prison while one of his children was born.

"It doesn't matter how long the sentences get. The sentence doesn't matter," Benny said. "When you take freedom from people, that's what's scary."

There are only 3,600 people in prison in this country, compared with 2.3 million in the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Relative to population, the U.S. has about 10 times as many inmates as Norway.

More than 89% of Norway's jail sentences are less than a year, officials said. In U.S. federal prisons, longer sentences are much more common, with fewer than 2% serving a year or less, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Some researchers support Norway's efforts to lighten sentences.

Think of prison like parenting and it starts to make sense, said Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA and author of "When Brute Force Fails."

"Every parent knows this. What if you tried to discipline your kid by saying, 'If you don't clean your room, there's a 10% chance I'll kick you out of the house and never see you again'?" he said, referencing the fact that many crimes in America go unpunished, but the justice system issues harsh sentences when offenders are caught. Grounding the child immediately, a softer sentence, would work better, even though the punishment is less severe, he said.

"We have a criminal justice system (in the United States) that, if it were a parent, we would say it's abusive and neglectful."

Kleiman said victims do have a right to see offenders punished. But in Norway, a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, staying on a resort-like island with horses might feel like punishment to many people, he said.

Research also suggests that programs like Bastoy that train inmates for their transition back into the free world -- with education, counseling and such -- do help prisoners adjust.

"There is overwhelming evidence that rehabilitation works much better than deterrence as a means of reducing re-offending," said Gerhard Ploeg, a senior adviser at the Ministry of Justice, which oversees Norway's corrections system.

"It's all in the name of reintegration," he added. "You won't be suddenly one day standing on the street with a plastic bag of things you had when you came in."

Mass shooting challenges system

Norway's unusual prison policies have been pushed into the international spotlight after a bombing and shooting spree last year in which 77 people were killed, including children.

There's a chance -- although minimal -- that Anders Behring Breivik, who confessed to those crimes, could end up in Bastoy, one of Norway's "open prisons," Nilsen said.

Norwegians value respecting killer's human rights

It's more likely Breivik will be sent to one of Norway's many high-security "closed" prisons, which look much more like their U.S. counterparts.

He also could be set free some day. Norway has a maximum jail sentence of 21 years, which can be extended only when an inmate is deemed to be a real and imminent threat to society. The country expects nearly every prisoner to be returned to society, which influences its efforts to create jail environments that reduce re-offense rates.

Lawyer: Norwegian killer vows not to appeal guilty verdict if found sane

"The question we must ask is, 'What kind of person do I want as my neighbor?' " Ploeg said. "How do we want people to come out of prison? If your neighbor were to come out of prison, what would you want him to be like?"

Still, it's likely Breivik's sentence will be extended to the point that he will spend his life in a high-security prison, he said. Or he could go into life-long psychiatric care.

Breivik's case challenges a system that hopes to fix everyone.

The case has unearthed levels of anger that are uncharacteristic of Norway, which prides itself as a home for conflict mediation and human rights, a place that hosts the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and has one of the best standards of living in the world.

Last week, a man lit himself on fire outside the Oslo courthouse where Breivik's trial is taking place. His motives were unclear, police said.

"(Breivik) doesn't deserve to go to prison," said Camilla Bjerke, 27, who tends bar in Horten, the town on the other side of the water from Bastoy. "He deserves to be hanged outside the courthouse. ... He's just going to go into prison and watch TV and download movies."

Then there's this sentiment: If Breivik were ever released into the public, someone would kill him, several Norwegians said. Inmates at Bastoy echoed those sentiments, saying he would have to be quarantined or he wouldn't be safe on the island.

Others are trying to fight that anger.

Bjorn Ihler, a 20-year-old who narrowly escaped Breivik's shooting spree by diving into the ocean with two children while bullets flew at them, said, "it's very important that we don't let this terrorist change the way we are and the way things work."

"The prison system in Norway is based around the principle of getting criminals back into society, really, and away from their criminal life -- and to get them normal jobs and stuff like that," he said.

He doesn't know how he would feel if Breivik were to be released, but he would like the system to function as usual. "So prisons must be very much focused on getting people to a place where they are able to live normal, non-criminal lives. And that's the best way of preserving society from crime, I think."

Looking to the future

All of these efforts aim to help a person like Vala, the gentle giant who strangled his girlfriend, to get ready for release back into society at the end of his 10-year sentence.

After he helped a toddling calf come into the world, Vala said, he leaned on a rail next to the cow's pen and thought about his life and the murder that landed him here. The symbolism that he had used his hands to end one life and help begin another was not lost on him. "I stayed for six hours," he said. "It was very beautiful."

The night he killed his girlfriend, Vala says, he blacked out and then came to with his hands around her neck, after she was dead.

"We never fight," he said. "We never do. So I don't know what happened."

He felt helpless and out of control when he came to.

But now he's trying to pull it together. He decided to quit drinking for good. And when he's working with animals, he said, feels a new calm wash over him.

It's a change the prison guards have noted, too. Sigurd Vedvik said he met Vala while he was serving out the earlier part of his sentence in a high-security prison. Vedvik was screening him for entry into Bastoy. Vala barely could communicate. He seemed broken.

"When he first came here, he was very afraid of many people," said Vedvik, who sees himself as more of a teacher or social worker than a person who enforces security.

Now, Vala is making friends. Talking more. Taking responsibility for the cattle he's tasked with caring for. He strokes the cows' necks so gently, it seems as if he's worried they will shatter.

When Vala leaves Bastoy, he plans to go into the construction business and hopes to find some way to spend time on a farm.

"I'm trying to think to my future."

That's something he couldn't do after the murder.

And it took a posh prison -- one with cattle and horses -- to get him into that state of mind.

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