The Most Disturbing Prison In The Universe

I'm so glad you mentioned Norway. Our prison system has caught so much flak from other countries. Notably comedians from America. The prison director of Halden once said in an interview "Who do you want living as your neighbour? A person that's been treated like a dog for 10 years, or someone that got help with their addiction, financial troubles, mental health and treated with dignity?"

Complicating the issue of jails in Los Angeles is the fact that a pretty significant percentage of inmates have severe mental illness. Our jail system has been referred to as the largest mental health hospital in the world but the problem is, it isn't set up to be a hospital. California shut down most of the hospitals and asylums because they became places where people were being inhumanely warehoused but instead of community based models filling the gap, prisons became the answer for now. Great video and really key to understanding the power of architecture to foster relationships.

whenever i think about prison and recidivism, i think about experiencing school as an autistic kid. In middle school, I would sometimes get so overwhelmed i'd stay in a bathroom stall for an entire class period. They would send me to ISS for skipping class, but I kept having to skip classes. All ISS did was stress me out about my attendance, make me more stressed, and i'd have more and more meltdowns that I felt the need to contain privately. In high school, my 504 counselor (who was much more competent than my IEP counselor in middle school) helped me build a system where I could communicate with my teachers and do my work in the guidance office, where I could be supervised in a relaxed environment and get my work done. When you punish bad behavior, you lose the chance to fix the issue at it's source.

one thing about the prison in andor having windows is that it proves to the prisoners that there are others competing against them. otherwise they might not believe that they are actually competing and won’t work as hard

I worked in "Corrections" at the national level in Canada for many years. This analysis is one of the best that I have ever seen. Prisons, at best, 'incapacitate' as Dami said, they (in most of the world) do not rehabilitate, and are, in fact, a very expensive way of making a 'bad' man worse. Great work Dami.

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In Singapore, the punishment cells in prison only have a hole in the floor that functions as a toilet and the only water source. The lights are left on 24/7 and you sleep on the ground next to the toilet on concrete. Meals come blended like a smoothie making even the food not something to look forward to a lot of people come out loosing 30 to 50 pounds.

I lived in prison for only 30 days. At that time, I already had psychotic depression (a depression so deep that you have psychotic symptoms). From the moment I entered, I felt deprived of dignity and respect. Keep in mind, I was in because of very minor offences. There was, however, no distinction between varying levels of criminality. I was in the same cell block as convicted murderers, rapists, robbers, etc.. My mental health deteriorated extremely quickly. Within 2 weeks, my psychosis had gotten so bad that I started to believe that someone had a hit out on me. My anti-psychotic meds were also upped 4X from when I first entered. After I left, the effects from living in jail persisted for a long time afterwards. I was only in for 30 days. I can only imagine the level of (most likely permanent) psychological damage I would have accrued if I had stayed for multiple months or even years. I was lucky enough to have enough financial support and a welfare system that is a lot better than America's (Canadian) that helps those with mental illness weave through the court system. That being said, prison/jail is in no way a form of rehabilitation. It is a form of punishment, designed to strip any self-respect and dignity a person may have. I firmly believe in the concept of rehabilitation rather than punishment, as Norway has been doing for the past couple of decades. I was lucky and smart enough to seek help and am now functioning with barely any symptoms. This can't be said, however, for the vast majority of people. Recidivism rates are very high in Canada, too. And at some point, you become institutionalized. It is a part of capitalism to seek profits and only focus on the short term. Long term plans are on the backburner of a purely capitalist society. Norway and the other Scandinavian countries are actually social democracies, who are not overruled by the corporations and corporate greed in the same way America (the beacon of capitalism) is. Things such as huge differences in recidivism rates prove this, as well as the huge gap in incarceration rates between the US and Norway. There are a small minority of criminals who are not able to be rehabilitated safely, such as psychopaths, sociopaths, and child sex offenders. For the vast majority of criminals, though, rehabilitation is and should be the only solution to solving the problem.

I can appreciate the crossover from architecture to philosophy, human rights, and psychology

I recall hearing of a prison where everyone was given a cat to care for. Many of them began to grow empathy and responsibility in caring for their cats and those who abused cats were dealt with severely, by the other inmates.

Damn, I did not expect you to mention Norway's prson system here. It's important to note that the only thing special about Halden is it's facilities. The principles and freedoms of the inmates are similar, if not broader, in other Norwegian prisons.

Great production value on the video. As for the current systems, while the US undoubtedly needs serious reform in the department of prisoner rehabilitation, I do believe it should still be a prison’s job to contain first, punish second, and rehabilitate third. The simple fact of the matter is that not everyone is capable of change, and it is gullible to think that way. The top priority should be keeping dangerous people away from society for obvious reasons. If any of the later priorities or even humanitarian concerns significantly compromise security, they should not be implemented. The secondary priority should be punishment. While I admittedly don’t know anything about that prison in Norway short of what has been shown, I still despise the perception that prison there can be fun. What right does someone who committed a violent crime, or anyone for that matter, to have a fun day of arts and crafts without the responsibility and burdens of a job and bills. Prison is for people who did bad things, it’s not a vacation. Furthermore, there is validity in the argument that those who are incapable of understanding empathy will understand punishment. If prison consists of hard but fair labor, not only do they pay for themselves instead of wasting taxpayer money, it also teaches them about work ethic while still being unpleasant enough to make them not want to go back. Lastly, rehabilitation. Not every prisoner is capable of change or even wants it, and often I think the punishment is needed first. Perhaps the best approach would be to begin rehabilitation a few years prior to release or whenever the prisoner displays signs of being open to rehabilitation. That way, resources aren’t wasted on prisoners who don’t care and the more important priorities of a prison come first. Lastly, and somewhat unrelated to my prior points, prison culture is a huge issue. There are too many “tough guys” who aren’t afraid of being in prison because it’s really not that bad. Consistent trouble makers need to be broken up and separated from those actively receiving rehabilitation. Tying back into my previous points, during the rehabilitation stage then I would find it appropriate for a prisoner to be transferred away from their current group and placed in a much nicer rehabilitation based prison where they are treated better and their progress is monitored. Also the whole “good behavior” thing that people get out early for could be tied in to this process.

One neat thing that often gets overlooked when people discuss Bentham's panopticon design is that, not only can the whole thing theoretically be managed by a single guard in the centre tower (since no prisoner knows if they're being watched at any time, they must assume that they are), but that eventually you can remove even that one guard, and the behaviour of the prisoners should remain the same, since they don't know there's literally no one watching anymore, and they still must assume the eyes are on them at any moment.

12:31 It wouldn't be the First Time in the Star Wars unniverse that an Architectural/Engeneering "flaw" was implemented intentionally by someone in order to sabotage the Empire from the inside. Ironically, both stories featuring this have Cassian Andor in it.

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Love your work

My brother served a sentence in a Norwegian prison, and it was low security which is pretty lax. My aunt told him that she heard that Bastøy was like a vacation resort, with barely any rules or guards. And wondered if he wanted to be sent there instead of (iirc) Larvik Prison. My brother very gently, but firmly shut her down. He said that Bastøy is strictly regulated, by the inmates. You have access to chainsaws and lots of power-tools. And the inmates have an innate hierarchy that makes sure that other new inmates don't "ruin the status quo" for the rest of them. So while it looks chill, it's pretty stressful.

I just did 43 months in federal prison in Seattle Washington. One of the hardest parts for me was the complete separation from nature, it was a multistory building with no access to an outside yard and frosted windows inside the cells. Also there were no real programs to help people work on themselves. One of the worst experiences of my life, alot of days of nothing but suicidal thoughts, thank God I made it through and I'm doing great now.

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U make great videos :>