Nordic prison cells look like $3,000 apartments in San Francisco.

1) The first 2 photos are cells. The latter 2 are common areas for ~12 prisoners

2) By $3,000 dollar apartments, I just mean modern housing, not inhumane dungeons like American prisons. SF's rent isnt high because the apartments are good but because there's a housing shortage.

If your goal is to rehabilitate people and steer them away from criminal lifestyles, curious which environment would foster a better outcome.

USA vs Sweden

Trick question: US prison system isnt supposed to rehabilitate!

Cant keep the money pumping through the criminal justice system, the bloated police budgets and bloated incarceration spending if perpetual criminalization wheel stops churning.

Some of yall are saying its too comfortable or that all prison is bad. Imma just point to the fact that 20% of Norwegian prisoners re-offend versus 76.6% in the U.S. A strong system of public healthcare, employment, education and yes, rehabilitation, helps https://law.emory.edu/eilr/content/volume-31/issue-2/comments/prisoner-norwegian-wisdom-american-penal-practice.html

In comparison, the United States judicial law explicitly prohibits judges from considering rehabilitation when sentencing. The American system only seems to benefit those who profit from free labor which explains the 76.6% recidivism rate. (h/t @AthulKAcharya)

So this begs the question: if 18 U.S.C. 3582(a) prohibits judges from considering rehabilitation when sentencing, what is the purpose of incarceration in the United States?

Read The New Jim Crow for starters if you already haven't.

Also sentencing times in the USA are absurdly long. So those prisoners in Nordic countries are staying usually for a shorter time than the years & decades requirements in the U.S., disproportionately higher for Black inmates than White for the exact same crime and circumstance

The U.S. prison system is one of the biggest public housing programs on earth in a country with massive homelessness. It's wholly corrupt, worsens crime, and only survives because media feeds people a steady supply of "revenge" culture rather than rehabilitation culture.

I have no hesitation in saying virtually all US prisons should be torn down and that the subsidies to house inmates would be better spent on swift-employment programs, housing and healthcare. Facilities can be construction for the few remaining who need genuine rehabilitation.

The judicial system needs to be completely reformed from an insidious cycle of poverty and debt traps with bail bonds and legal protection, with people's years thrown away like racking up points on a pinball machine, and instead focused on payment-free rehabilitation for the poor

Not only are felons prohibited for public housing or housing assistance, they're prohibited from some public jobs. And the reason why is because the criminal justice system expects you to come back to the "proper" public home with the "proper" job: prison https://twitter.com/AlisonB916/status/1337949876462620673?s=20

Whats sad about America, the wealthiest country on the planet, is that we could easily outperform these Scandinavians and as a nation with so much diversity and immigration, make a near utopia.

But the people who run this country simply choose not to.