This could be a game changer

I was astonished to read From Prisoners to Good Neighbors in the L.A.Times, reporting “a new vision for San Quentin,” where Governor Gavin Newsom is changing the prison to Norway’s model that perhaps only Michael Moore and I talk about publicly -- and I’ve talked about it a lot.

Here’s one place – the L.A.Times printed this:

Date: Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 2:01 PM
Subject: Letter to the Editor  

Minnesota Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison touched me when he talked about having compassion for Chauvin because he’s a human being.

In the United States, an estimated two-thirds of people released from prison re-offend. In Norway, it’s about 20%.

What the Norwegians do is rehabilitate. Being away from families is punishment. If rehabilitation hasn’t worked when a sentence is up, Norway can extend imprisonment.

What I’d add is service. If you’re incarcerated, it puts you in the employ of the state — not forced labor, but service according to your abilities that’s all gainful to the state as payback for crimes. This not only would help rehabilitate, it also would benefit society.

Housing people in cages and moving them around in chains is a barbaric way to treat humans. Our “eye for an eye” ethic is so ingrained that we don’t even see how primitive we are.

Suzanne Taylor

For my letter and two that don’t agree with me: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-29/times-editorial-on-sentencing-derek-chauvin.

There’s a segment in Moore’s 2016 film, Where to Invade Next, about Norway’s system, and in 2017 I did this blog post about it: Enlightened Imprisonment. It not only would revolutionize how we treat prisoners but could revolutionize the world. (Newsom is dealing only with what happens in prisons. Norway’s system also includes radically different ways of sentencing. Hopefully that will come next for us.) My blog is headed, Would you rather get your pound of flesh punishing someone for a crime or rehabilitate that person so when they get out of prison they don’t re-offend and go back in? Do we prefer vengeance or a world that works?

Hallelujah. This may be the most important thing ever to uplevel everything we do. Here are excerpts from the L.A.Times article:

“By 2025, San Quentin will become “the largest center of rehabilitation, education and training in the California prison system, and maybe the nation. No longer will it be a maximum-security facility. Instead, it will be a place for turning out good neighbors…includes job training for careers that can pay six figures, trades such as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers…”

“… most people who go into prison come out again, more than 30,000 a year in California, Newsom points out. So public safety depends on people choosing to change, and having opportunities for a sustainable, law-abiding life. Otherwise they will simply go back to what they know, be it selling dope, robbing houses or worse.”

“The Scandinavian model looks at the loss of liberty and separation from community as the punishment. During that separation, life should be as normal as possible so that people can learn to make better choices without being preoccupied by fear and violence…”

“…the Scandinavian model is ‘helping people become the best version of themselves. As we bring people home, if we give them real opportunities to make a decent living, think of how we are breaking the cycle.’”

There is much more. I’m begging you, read all of it. Adopting the Norwegian model would involve a fundamental shift of our perspective from being the oppositional and antagonistic humanity we largely have become to being the caring, supportive species we could be.

Take A Tour Of Norway's Unbelievably Luxurious Prison
Click for more pictures of what you’ll find hard to believe.

The cells are pretty spacious.

Ten inmates share this common area.

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