Will we ever learn from Norway?

Several years ago representatives from the Michigan Department of Corrections visited Norway to learn about the country's criminal justice system and correctional facilities. And, for good reason. Norway's criminal justice system focuses on restorative justice and prisoner rehabilitation, and the number of prisoners keeps dropping! 

Correctional facilities in Norway aim to make prisoners functioning members of society. 

But, and we cannot stress this enough: Something else is incredibly important in the Norwegian System. Leaders there claim that their success also hinges on two other critical components: dedication to staff training and staffing ratios. 

I was prompted to write about this after our good friend Carol Myers sent me an article from The Seattle Times. The State of Washington is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar effort that some advocates hope will make Washington’s prisons safer. It has nothing to do with tighter restrictions or heightened surveillance. Its operating principle: humanity! 

No wonder HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS IS INTERESTED! 

Washington State’s problems sound very much like the Michigan issues that cross our desks every day: 

 -inadequate medical care

-widespread use of solitary confinement

-understaffing fed by stress and assaults; and

-an old-school, command-and-control culture among many staffers that, “arguably serves neither them nor incarcerated people.” (The Seattle Times) 

I wonder if this huge effort in Washington will have more success than our limited effort in Michigan. Their goal is sweeping reform, perhaps not solving all the system’s problems but certainly improving outcomes and increasing safety for incarcerated people and staff. The hard truth of the matter, though, is that both money and buy-in are required. That leads skeptics to wonder if there’ll be enough of both to overhaul an entrenched culture and bureaucracy. 

Still, so serious is Washington’s Department of Corrections about following Norway’s lead that, with the help of a University of California program called Amend, The Seattle times reports that it has brought more than 100 staffers to the Scandinavian country on 10 trips! 

Pure Michigan didn’t do that. BUT, we still can! 

In our public presentations, HFP keeps reminding Michiganders that 85-90 percent of those incarcerated will eventually be our neighbors! Norwegians asked this simple question: “Who do we want our neighbors to be?” 

HFP board member Marla Mitchell-Cichon, esteemed attorney and director-emeritus of the Cooley Innocence Project, contends that Michigan’s system isn’t working. We need to start over. 

Well, that isn’t even thinkable unless you and I get involved. 

May the words of our friend, Sister Helen Prejean, inspire us: 

“I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it…I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a woman with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer.” 

It’s roll up sleeves time!