Bastoy Prison: The World’s Nicest Prison

About 75 kilometers off the coast of Oslo in Norway, is an island that's home to some 115 criminals, including the the country’s most dangerous, convicted of crimes such as murder, rape and drug dealing. However, doing time here is like being on a holiday. There are no barbed-wire-topped walls or electrified fences circle the island, nor do armed guards and attack dogs patrol the grounds. Prisoners live in brightly painted small wooden cottages, and tend to farm animals, grow crops and chop wood. For recreation, there's a beach where prisoners sunbathe in the summer, plenty of good fishing spots, horses for riding, a sauna and tennis courts. Dinner offers a choice of dishes such as “fish balls with white sauce and shrimps" and everything from chicken con carne to salmon. It's like “the holiday version of Alcatraz.”
The kind of treatment offered to these prisoners usually perplex, sometimes even offend people who believe that prison should be a place of deprivation and penance rather than domestic comfort. But if the goal of prison is to change people, Bastoy seems to work. Only 16% of prisoners who come out of Bastoy reoffend within two years of being released, compared to Norway's national average of 20 percent, and the European average of 70%.

According to Arne Kvernvik Nilsen, a former governor of Bastoy, it’s all about attitude, respect, and self-discovery. “The only way we have to change people is to put [them] in a situation where the change can start from inside in each individual. And that has to start with him discovering himself in a new way, instead of looking at himself as a failure.”

Bastoy Prison encourages such dramatic change by handing responsibility back to inmates, often through a series of choices. Inmates at Bastoy can make their own decisions regarding how to carry out their respective sentences. Some have chosen to work with the various animals - tending to horses in the stable, or raising cattle, sheep, or lambs. Others have filled positions as farmers, chefs, grocery-store managers, carpenters, mechanics, and even ferry operators.