summarize this article in your own words. You should indicate why this source is important and significance for the topic " Comparative Analysis of Rehabilitative Programs in US and Norway Prisons"

Paper: .

"The United States suffersfrom among the highest crime and recidivism rates in the world. This is in part due to its focus on retribution as the purpose o f punishment and its high sentencing structure. Norway, on the other hand, has

some o f the lowest crime and recidivism rates and boasts Halden prison, which has been hailed as the world's most humane prison. In Halden and other prisons, the Norwegian penal system applies the principle o f normality. Under the principle o f normality, Norway seeks the reintegration o f its offenders into society. Its prisoners suffer fewer o f the negative, unintended side effects o f prison that isolate the prisoner from society, reinforce bad habits, and make reintegration upon release nearly impossible. This Comment proposes that the United States could reduce its high crime and recidivism rates with a penological approach that bridges that o f the two countriesa rehabilitative retributivism. The United States can keep its focus on retribution while at the same time making sure that its punishment does not swell to include those negative side effects. By reducing its sentencing structures and incorporating

the principle o f normality into its retributive goal, the United States could better ensure that prisoners return to society as productive members, and it could experience lower crime and recidivism rates as a result.

The United States has now declared a preference for deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution as goals for punishment, but has pointedly avoided indicating a preference for rehabilitation or restorative justice.71 Alternatively, the Norwegian view of punishment is that the restriction of liberty is the punishmentthe offender retains the same rights as non-offending citizens.72 While American cases have also affirmed incarceration as the punishment, this affirmation has not prevented stripping the prisoner of his rights. Rather, this affirmation has been used only to prevent poor prison conditions and mistreatment, such as beatings and physical deprivations.73 It has certainly not been used as a basis for rehabilitative efforts. The American approach to punishment centers on retributivism, while the Norwegian approach centers on rehabilitation and restoration. Understandings of the purposes of punishment shape consequent penal policy, and the differences between these two countries will be highlighted even more as this Comment dives deeper into each country's respective penal practice.

In 1984, Congress passed the Sentencing Reform Act.77 In it, Congress replaced the previous indeterminate sentences with '" guidelines [that] reflect the inappropriateness of imposing a sentence to a term of imprisonment for the purpose of rehabilitating the defendant or providing the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment.'"7*The Act therefore embodied the radical transformation occurring within the United States to reject the role of rehabilitation in punishment.

While these reforms initially appeared to have the goal of rooting out sentencing disparities resulting from differing views of various judges, in practice, the reforms led to a harsher penal practice that disregarded each offender's individual characteristics while simultaneously increasing the severity of sentences.79 Determinate sentencing produced an atmosphere, which is still present, in which "[w]e punish by the book, by the numbers, by rigid guidelines, by unnecessarily cruel minimum sentences. The result is overfilled prisons and unnecessary havoc and suffering for those within and without incarcerating walls ...indirectly punishing families and communities."80 Determinate sentencing gifted America with length and certainty of sentences unseen in the rest of the world. Looking at the years 1980-1996, over one half of the increase in incarceration rates was attributed to a greater likelihood of a prison sentence upon arrest, whereas only about one tenth was attributed to an actual rise in crime.81 Judge Richard Posner acknowledged the role that our sentencing structure plays, citing the United States' "'exceptionally severe

criminal punishments (many for intrinsically minor, esoteric, or archaic

offenses)' as one of the factors making the United States 'one of the most penal of the civilized nations."'82

Norway has resisted the pressure to give harsh sentences. In 1981, around the same time that the United States was implementing the Sentencing Reform Act, Norway abolished the life sentence83 and replaced it with a twenty-one-year maximum sentence.84 Imprisonment in Norway is generally imposed for terms between fourteen days and fifteen years, in certain cases for a term not exceeding twenty years, and "in cases in which it is specially provided, for a term not exceeding 21 years."85 For example, the minimum penalty for committing a homicide is six years, but the maximum of twenty-one years may be applied only in cases of premeditation, felony murder, or if the offender acted to conceal a felony or evade its penalty.86 Breivik received this maximum sentence of twenty-one years.87 Furthermore, the death penalty is prohibited in Norway, and even use of imprisonment as a punishment is limited to serious offensesthe majority of non-serious offenses are punished by fines.88 For those that do receive a prison sentence, the average sentence in Norway is around eight months,89 whereas the average sentence in the United States is twenty-seven months.90In Norway, "[ojver 60% of unconditional prison sentences are up to 3 months, and almost 90% is [sic] less than a year."91

Norway seeks to reintegrate its offenders into society. It is aware ofthe harmful effects ofprisons and seeks to overcome them. The United States has no comparable principle or application. Punishment in the United States has expanded from the sentence. The prisoner suffers not only the time served, but also what the time served does to themremoving them from society, reinforcing bad habits, and making reintegration upon release nearly impossible and recidivism inevitable.

If, instead, the United States were to learn from the model of Norway, it could stop the cycle of high incarceration and recidivism rates. By integrating retributivism as adequate punishment with rehabilitation, the United States could curtail the negative, unintended side effects ofthat punishment. To craft a penal policy based on rehabilitative retributivism, the United States should seek to lower its sentences and rid itself o f harsh mandatory sentences that rob judges of discretion and prevent particularizing the punishment to the individual. Chiefly, the United States should incorporate the principle ofnormality into how it treats its prisoners. Prisoners may then be properly reintegrated into society after release and no longer pose a threat of recidivism. This change will help prisoners, both those incarcerated and those released, and it will also help the United States as a whole. It is time for change and Norway's penal model provides apt guidance for the form that change ought to take."