Norway prisons are famous for their approach to incarceration, which focuses on rehabilitation and preparing for re-entry to society. What can Connecticut learn from them?
WSHU’s Molly Ingram spoke with CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas to discuss his article, “Borrowing from Norway, a Connecticut prison tries a new approach,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Mark’s story here.
WSHU: Hi Mark, welcome to the studio.
MP: Thanks for having me.
WSHU: You write about a pilot program at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. What sets it apart from the typical American prison experience?
MP: Well, Garner is where the incarcerated men who have mental health diagnoses are, by and large, concentrated there, they have a significant mental health unit that is one of the reforms that the Connecticut Department of Correction had launched some years ago.
WSHU: Why are they trying to make this change? What's been happening at state prisons that prompted the need?
MP: Well, for one thing, in the last five years, the number of assaults on staff, fights among inmates have been going up, and the pilot program they're launching is really an effort to have a team that will work with some of the more troublesome men who are jailed there. Too much of the American prison system operates like an Amazon warehouse. You know, the correction officers are moving men from place to place, from from a cell, to a mess hall, to appointments with a counselor. And there are relatively few personal interactions with these folks, and this program is an effort to take some of the principles of the prisons in Norway, which are considered to be the most progressive and humane prisons in the world, and adopt them for Connecticut purposes. There are a couple other states that are doing this. These are called resource teams, and the premise is pretty simple. It's really a little bit of therapy, which is mainly in the form of conversations that's disguised as recreational activities. And this is both deceptively simple, but radical at the same time. It's radical in the sense that the modern prison is really designed to have an enforced distance between correction officers and the incarcerated.
So this is something that California has done successfully. You have these teams that will take these men out of the cells. It can be a long walk within the prison yard. It can be playing cards. It's just interactions for a while. It's a way for the correction officers who are on the cell blocks to get a handle on what's going on with these folks who have various mental health diagnoses. The way it otherwise works is, if there's a incidence of violence, you know, correction officers kind of put out the fire, and then there may be some interaction with the mental health professionals at this prison, but there's very little kind of in between, stuff about how you can get a read on the mood of some of the challenges for these men. So this is really designed for the benefit of staff and the incarcerated. The idea is, you bring down stress levels. You make the prison safer for all concerned.
The statistics for life expectancy for retired correction officers is really dismal. The life expectancy is 59 compared to the mid 70s for men. And these, these are not all men. I mean, there is a mixed gender staff at Garner but that is something that's been known for a long time. Connecticut has kind of gone in fits and starts about reform efforts. They did certain things during Governor Malloy’s administration, he was very passionate about this. At Cheshire prison, they created a unit for 18 to 25 year olds to really have it more of a therapeutic community. Their routine would mimic living outside the walls, because 95% of the folks in prison, they're going to get out eventually. So the idea is, how can you best prepare them? And that was something that they launched, you know, 10 years ago or so. And I think most of the feedback is it's been successful in the sense that it's really brought down the number of violent incidents at that prison, because that age group had a disproportionate number of violent incidents, because the theory behind that unit is a part of our brain that controls executive function doesn't really mature until age 25. So that was one reform.
But then Malloy left office, and then COVID came, and that kind of froze things. And, you know, the concern became, all right, how do we maintain health and security in these prisons. So this is something that is the result of trips to Norway by academics, by senior staff of the prison system, as well as some of the correction officers, as a field trip to California for the better part of a week to see how they do this. They were only going to start this at York, which is the one prison for women in Connecticut, but there was an incident last summer in Garner where a correction officer was stabbed in the neck. And this kind of nudged them to say, let's broaden it. So they're launching this program at both York and at Garner, and they're really getting it under way this week in earnest.
WSHU: An interesting point that you make is that this wasn't taken on because of a law or because of a mandate. They're doing this willingly, and that's made a difference.
MP: That's absolutely made a difference. That's a great point. Too many of the reforms are forced on the prison system, and too many of the reforms are top down. In other words, the Commissioner of staff may agree to something, and then it's enforced on the staff to do. This is very different. The correction officers are brought in at the beginning. They are designing this program. They have a lot of autonomy about how to deal with these men, and that has made a difference in other states, where there's a sense of ownership among the correction officers. You know most of these officers, they get it. They understand that there are certain inmates that you need to understand, what are their triggers? Who, if you put them in a mess hall with, are they going to end up, more than likely, with a fight? And so this is an idea to give these officers, again, greater autonomy to design this program, to determine who they are going to work with. And that's worked very well in California. You know, one of the people I interviewed for this who had gone on that trip, and not only was he impressed by what he saw in the prison, but he was even more impressed when he went out for drinks after work, and some of the officers, partners, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends came, and they all spoke about how less stress that their loved ones have. And so they're trying to create this virtuous circle of having, you know COs who are less stressed, who have more job satisfaction, how that will reflect on the inmates and reflect back on the staff.
WSHU: So what's the timeline like on this? Do we know how long they're going to go through with the trial period?
MP: They're calling it a pilot, but they're launching it with the idea that they're going to stick with it. And it's a pilot in the sense of looking at it, looking at what works, what doesn't work, before they expand it. They would love to expand this to other prisons. There would be some, you know, finances involved. These are staff that are going to be taken away from other duties there. It's not huge. It's 10 officers at Garner, for example, they will cover two shifts. But the feeling is, you know, if you can reduce violent incidents by 10, 20, 30% this is going to be well worth it for everyone concerned.
WSHU: Thanks so much, Mark.
MP: Thank you.
