The sun is fighting against the thick cloud, which depends on this autumn morning on Bastoy. On the Norwegian island, an idyllic location in the Oslo fjord, blowing a cool breeze. The waves beat against the rocky coast. The sound of the waves is the only sound besides the screeching of the gulls. The view to the mainland over? Picturesque. Occasionally, the sun rays from reaching the green tops of the pine trees. Bastoy, a beautiful, mystical-sounding islets, 2.3 square kilometers of small, a lot of forest.
“My favorite places here? The Church, the island library, the tennis courts, the Café and the beach,“ says Robert, 49 years old, medium-length hair. Bastoy is not a holiday island, and Robert said not a Tourist. Bastoy is a prison, and Robert perhaps one of the most fortunate prisoners in the world.
The island since the late 19th century. A century of Norwegian-owned. Until the 1970s Bastoy was the institution of a recovery for bad boys. Sexual abuse, violence – the conditions in the home were disastrous. “If you’re not good, we will send you a Bastoy – this used to be the worst, which one has threatened children,” says Tom Eberhardt. The 41-year-old prison warden, light beard, dark blond hair with a receding hairline, three days, told this story. Bad guys are still on Bastoy – but dealing with them is another. 14 countries, 14 Reporter – solutions, which can be for our society as a model
FOCUS Online launches a new and constructive Reportage series. The target: perspectives for Germany’s social and societal future. What other countries do better and what you can learn Germany from international models? To find answers, travel 14 FOCUS-Online-a Reporter in 14 different countries.
All of the already published stories, you can find here.
there are No walls and door locks for murderers and rapists
115 Criminal life on the island. Thugs, tax cheats, rapists, and 20 killer. However, on Bastoy, there are no fences, no walls, no cells. No locks, no bolts that prevent the occupant from go pens. Armed personnel.
The prison Director instead relies on a different means in dealing with the detainees: “I trust my passengers. The feel from the first day, when you are suddenly without handcuffs alone on the island, and this degree of freedom are not accustomed to.“ To come to Bastoy – the need to earn detainees, mostly through impeccable behavior in a different prison.
from a Purely geographic to a prison island in Germany is already less likely. However, there is a German Bastoy, everything would be different. In this country: In the closed execution of the detention rooms of the occupants must be cordoned off. To open only certain times of the doors.
On Bastoy may do the prisoners in their leisure time and what they want: to play football, the Indoor climbing wall use, supermarket shopping, go to the gym, horse riding, even on the prison’s private beach for a swim. At night, between 21.30 PM and 7.00 am, only four guards on the entire island. Trust get paid and no manure build – it is a Deal that the prisoners involved.
Escape is doing here is (almost) no one, and in almost 30 years, there were very few violent clashes, says Director of Eberhardt. He is particularly proud of another statistic, in the Norway well and Bastoy record-breaking cuts: Only 16 per cent of the inmates of Bastoy are shown to be due and payable within two years after their release back to the criminal, such as a study a few years ago.
The German penal system is struggling with problems, the Least of the Assaults on the prison staff, piled up in several States. There is a lack of staff who is Sick. On the other hand, the prisons in several provinces are jam-Packed, in Baden-Württemberg, the load was not at 100 percent. This is also a high relapse rate of 48 per cent of the German prisoners criminal is due, as a study shows in the order of the Ministry of justice. Where is it better than in Germany? Experts refer to Norway. The relapse rate there, according to the study: 20 percent. Even in the Norwegian high-security is all about prisons, the rehabilitation of the prisoners. FOCUS Online to saw.
In Norway, flagship-prison inmates and guards hardly distinguishable
In the room next to Eberhardt’s office is funny. A detainee has baked a chocolate cake for the staff. A guard tells him that he can eat the cake, though, because yesterday he did get a Golf ball in the face. Guards, secretaries, and the prisoner laugh. Who is the prisoner? Difficult to detect, cons, and most of the guards wear their own clothes. Your ratio is pretty tight on Bastoy. The motto is: personal, but not private. Means: The staff to open the prisoners, intimate family details, but to keep for yourself.
the secret to The success of Bastoy? “We give the inmates from day 1 responsibility.” It is expected that you participate in the village life. “We try to village life to life that is as normal as possible,” says Director Eberhardt. For the occupant this means, for example: self-standing up without a Wake-up call, self-cooking, self washing Laundry. Mundane things that are in other prisons.
Also an island Council, there are five prisoners with five guards to sit and take on responsibility. The members are elected by other inmates and even decide on the use of certain funds. Last year, for instance a mobile phone was co-financed project with 15,000 euros Each inmate got a cellphone (without Internet), with which he can make calls between 18 and 22 hours, as much as he wants, as long as he can pay for it.
In Germany, “is the Imprisoned to be a prisoner,”
responsibility for prisoners? This is not, dare to Germany complained criminologist Bernd Maelicke. “In Germany, the responsibility is given from day one. Our prisons are total institutions – everything is regulated and prescribed, even in the leisure time, the subculture dominated.“
self-responsibility should be accepted in Germany, although step-wise in an Open prison, Betgram in social therapy, or in preparation for release. “The detention time in the Closed execution and prior to the dismissal, however, is characterized by incapacitation and enforcement of damage,” says About. He says: “In Norway, the Imprisoned state of permanent citizens. In Delike Germany, he is subjected to the special relationship of subordination to the state and to the prisoners.“
your first two to three weeks on Bastoy prisoners spend in the Entry, where you have to yourself and your manners to prove it. After that, they live in normal houses, part two, part eight. 20 pretty wooden houses, red, yellow, white, scattered over the island.
Director Eberhard runs over a gravel road to the Kuhstall, to the left is a small mountain, to the right fields. On Bastoy agriculture is operated. The prisoners are the pawns – if you have not learned to cook, a mechanic or a carpenter. During the day, you are working with the prison staff rather than only monitored. To the right of the dirt road, two huge greenhouses are full of tomatoes. Also corn or beans are grown on the island.
Around 30 cows and calves lying around in the barn. “Soon it goes for you to the butcher,” says Eberhardt entirely unromantic. “The cows are born here, eat here and be eaten here again: This is the circle of life.” With the self-grown grain and vegetables, the flesh of the 30 cows and 60 sheep may provide the island to a large extent.
prisoner on horse-drawn carriage
Robert, the prisoner with the favorite places, on a Carriage, two white horses in a Team. The 49-Year-old is due to tax fraud was sentenced to one year and nine months. “On Mondays and Tuesdays, I collect the horses from the owner. Twice a day I’ll get with you in the Post. Everything, what can we do with horses, we also make with horses.“
The first ecological prison in the world wants to be Bastoy. “If we pollute the climate, sea levels will rise, and then Bastoy way at some point,” says Eberhardt. Cars are allowed only in exceptional cases, Bastoy relies on horses and a vehicle with electric drive. A small E-scooter buzzes at Eberhardt over, and moves back in the direction of the village centre.
There, near the coast, there is a private house for visits. In Germany, the seems unthinkable. In the closed prison visits by relatives are strictly monitored, in high-security prisons anyway. Visit once a week, on Bastoy Standard, depending on the capacity of the inmates to see their families, even two to three times a week. Nights of External but are not allowed.
in the Middle of a Meadow, the samples in-house for the Blues Band, which consists of five occupants. Kai with the chin beard is your Coach: “We practice three times a week. We are very proud of our Blues Band, it is one of the most famous in the whole of Norway.“
prisoners are allowed to leave the prison island to the
For performances, leaving the occupants exceptionally the island. Recently, they played about in the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Just Kai is practicing with the Band a couple of Clapton-numbers and Bill Withers “Ain’t no Sunshine”. They write together but also Songs about life in prison. “So you do something out of his time,” says Kai.
In the centre of the village there is now a Cafeteria velvet Billiards table, Barista equipment, and XXL-Beamer for watching movies. Around the corner is the Church, which is also used as an Assembly room.
In all of the recreational opportunities and the scenic landscape, on Bastoy is a prison? Yes, blurts out Eberhardt in a fraction of a second. “People compare Bastoy with a holiday plant, have no idea.” He pulls together the eyebrows. “Even if I Suite in Oslo put them in the fanciest Five-star, you would suffer quite quickly if you know that you are not allowed to leave for several years. The I bet.“
The loss of freedom is punishment enough, says Eberhardt, and called to one of the basic principles of Norway’s criminal justice system. “It is no use to put prisoners in the worst possible environment – we need to give the Public even better.”
inmate fled with surfboard
Annoyed, has Eberhardt about a headline from the year 2015: “inmate flees on a surf Board made of the most luxurious prison in the world.” Everything was in there: a prisoner who escapes from a fenced-in luxury prison with a surfboard that had been supposedly made available to naive. Or? Eberhardt refers to annoyed to the fact that it was an absolute case, and that the man now sits in a maximum security prison.
naivety wants Eberhardt was not to blame: “Who is not integrated in the village community, has to back into the high-security prison.” Ten or fifteen times a year the come. A Macho culture that prevails in other prisons, the prison warden here in the first place.
Instead, he relies on a “progressive and positive atmosphere of mutual respect”. Because people always adapt to their environment and adapt to the behavior, Eberhardt convinced. “When I served in the army, I had finally also pictures of naked women in my locker and was a Macho, because that was the Standard,” he smiles.
Robert, the coach-the prisoner with the favorite places, like the Positive approach, even if he finds it silly sometimes. “The island is so vast, that we prisoners see each other often and know. But when we meet someone, we need to greet him. This is a duty.“ That makes for a nice atmosphere, have to admit, the 49-Year-old. He descends from the Carriage – in the evening. Now it’s back in his red wooden house on top of a small mountain. “I call it Beverly Hills,” grins the tax cheats. Then he says like “goodbye”. “14 countries, 14 Reporter”: All of the stories from Norway mobile, beach, own houses: Norway sends killer on the dream island – and has a flagship so that the success of”Happy occupant of the world”: The secret behind Norway’s prison dump prison without bars and locks: Why Norway’s Lars feel the guards still wanted to murder in a drug – after eight years in prison companies to tear him to Germany, many prisoners reoffending: 5 reasons why this is in Norway, anders
