Posts tagged "scandinavia"

Norway’s Halden Prison is a ‘Campus’

Halden Prison in Norway looks sort of like a fancy dorm room or a hotel — much different than the barbed wire and cramped cells we often associate with prison design. Its look is all part of a plan to create a more humane prison, one where the architecture isn’t part of the punishment. Most prisons around the world are consolidated into one single building. This style makes it easy and efficient for inmates to move around, but the design is monotonous and full of visually unappealing materials, like steel and concrete. Plus, tight quarters inside these spaces can foster conflict.
Halden has a different structure: a campus design, where inmates move from one building to another, and are surrounded by lots of windows and construction materials that help muffle noise and take advantage of natural light. The prison’s layout also encourages guards to interact with inmates face-to-face, which fosters better relationships and reduces security-related incidents.
Halden’s design style is expensive — which is why we mostly see it implemented in places with good social support systems, like Western Europe and Scandinavia. Still, the design is setting new standards for what prisons could be like in the future.

 

 

Norway pushes Electric Aircraft research

Norway, flush with oil money, is aware the boom won’t last.  And one of the biggest fossil fuel C02 footprints? Commercial aircraft. So this is welcome research.

On the heels of their success pushing sales of electric cars, Norway want to spur the move to electric airplanes
Header image: Gabriela Parra

Prison In Norway: A Different Model

Norway has a… different approach to prisons.

Norway saw a decrease in recidivism rates after they began treating inmates more humanely. North Dakota is adapting the same to make a dent in prison reform.

 

Most recently, David Byrne has celebrated and contrasted Norwegian and USA prison systems in his ‘Reasons To Be Cheeful’ blog.

https://www.reasonstobecheerful.world/article/2018/3/15/prison-reform

Norway, the country where you can see everyone’s tax returns

 

In Norway, (since the 1800s) no one can disguise their earnings, as every citizen’s is made available for everyone else in the country to inspect. Workers can see what their colleagues earn and neighbours can snoop on how much the people next door make – all legally and online.

On a date every year in October, just after midnight, Norwegian citizens’ annual tax returns are posted online – and the country’s Norwegian newspapers leap to produce top ten lists of the country’s highest earners, the incomes and taxes paid by the political and cultural elites, celebrities and sportspeople. There are a few limits on how the data is disclosed. Only total income and total tax paid is revealed.

“Housing First” – a new approach for addressing long-term homelessness

“How Finland tackled homelessness and why Birmingham might be following in their footsteps”

A revolutionary new scheme under which rough sleepers are given a home straight away could be officially piloted here in Birmingham (UK) after showing success abroad.
The “Housing First” principle gives rough sleepers a permanent stable home and address rather than move them through various shelters, hostels and supported accommodation.
It has proved such a success in the USA, Finland and several other countries that the Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid is looking to pilot the scheme here – and the West Midlands is making a bid to be that test bed.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/how-finland-tackled-homelessness-birmingham-13897678