Not too long after the California Legislature finished its 2023 session, a group of legislators went to prison in Norway — not for any nefarious deeds but instead to see if the country’s unique model offered any insight or tools that could be brought back to California.
Sen. Josh Newman and Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva were part of the delegation that traveled to Norway last month — along with a handful of other legislators, formerly incarcerated people and corrections officers — to study its model for incarceration.
There, after an overhaul of the correctional system in the 1990s, the approach is focused more on rehabilitation, offering inmates training and education.
The idea is to reduce recidivism rates and help those incarcerated become better family members or neighbors once they are released.
“If we know that we are going to be incarcerating people at a much higher rate than we ever have in the last handful of decades,” said Quirk-Silva, “we know that people will get out, and with no rehabilitation, there is a strong likelihood of reoffending, going back in and the pattern repeating.”
“Is there a better way to do this? We certainly saw some examples of that,” she said.
It’s not unusual for legislators to embark on education trips, including overseas, during times when the legislature isn’t in session.
For this six-day excursion, they visited three prisons in Norway: Halden, a maximum security prison; Bastøy, a lower-security facility on Bastøy Island; and Indre Østfold Prison.
In Norway with #SmartJustice visited 2 prisons, so much to learn and see. Did you know Police Officers and Correctional Officers don’t carry guns? Also for an individual to get a gun, they must have training and a license. pic.twitter.com/RXlc9sUXJr
— Sharon Quirk-Silva (@quirk_silva) September 19, 2023
Something that stuck out to Quirk-Silva was the effort to instill a sense of normalcy.
Inmates must cook some of their own meals; they go…
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