The Best Prisons Are Not the Harshest
When you think of a prison, you think of a strict correctional center full of thugs wearing orange jumpsuits. You wouldn’t believe that the country with the lowest recidivism rate in the world has the fanciest prisons. In Norway, prisoners are treated like people, and are given nice rooms and fun activities to do during their sentence.
  After 2 years from release, only 20% of prisoners have returned. With a rate this low, one would expect an extremely disciplined prison system where the prisoners are treated like dogs, to deter them from doing anything that will end them back there. However, Norway’s prisons are the most humane in the world. In Halden prison, a “maximum security” prison in the small town of Halden, has prison cells as large as 10 square meters, not to mention that each of the prisoners have a flat screen television, a mini fridge, and a private bathroom (Adams). Every 10-12 rooms share a standard kitchen and living area. Halden prison focuses on rehabilitation, and it works. The inside of the prison has been designed to be as much like the outside world as possible, and the prisoners are given more activities to reduce aggression.
However, such nice prisons come at a cost. At Halden, $93,000 are spent on a single prisoner. This may seem like much, compared to America spending approximately $31,000 on one of theirs. This may seem like a lot more, crime rates were the same in the US as in Norway, it would save the country $45 billion each year. The harshness of prisons in America simply isn’t working. 70% of prisoners return within two years. Not only does this cost the country more, but it also hurts families and the people becoming imprisoned.
Life inside a prison like Halden is nice, and possibly even nicer than the standard of living for some people, so why shouldn’t they break the law to get a nice place to live? Norway’s justice system counters this smoothly. The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years. Of course, if the prisoner is not seen fit for release, they will be held an extra five years, which can be repeated until the prisoner is deemed ready for society. But you have these people everywhere, and it means that they have become desperate, and what can one do about it? The answer is nothing. One simply has to rely on the people’s morality. If they end up in prison, eventually they will be rehabilitated and sent out again.
The relationship between the security guards and prisoners is also very important to how the prisoners behave. If the guards are more connected with their prisoners, chances are the prisoners will be less aggressive towards the guards and others in general. This is not difficult to accomplish, either. By treating the prisoners nicely and talking to them, their attitudes change. They will no longer feel like they are treated badly and are bad humans.
The reason the Norwegian prison system is so successful is not because it treats its prisoners so badly that they wouldn’t want to return. It isn’t because they traumatise their prisoners. It’s because they rehabilitate them with nice, comfortable prisons and staff. If a similar system was adapted in other countries, money would be saved (in the long run) and crime rates would decrease. 

Works Cited
Adams, W. (2010). Norway Builds the World's Most Humane Prison. [online] TIME.
Benko, J. (2018). The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison. [online]   NYTimes.