The paper I am reviewing is noticeable because it focuses on “open prisons.” Generally, prison scholars tend to speak and write about “prisons,” and when comparing among countries, the comparison tends to be limited to imprisonment rates. In some rare cases the sentence length is also discussed. In their article Contrasts in freedom: Comparing the experiences of imprisonment in open and closed prisons in England and Wales and Norway, authors Kristian Mjåland, Julie Laursen, Anna Schliehe and Simon Larmour expand the discussion by addressing the type of prisons. I welcome this opportunity to talk about open prisons.
The paper sets out to determine if open and closed prisons share the same basic characteristics, or if, on the contrary, one could defend that open prisons are experienced as less harmful. In order to answer this question, the paper uses 728 interviews to find out prisoners’ subjective experience of being imprisoned in Norway or England and Wales in an open or closed prison. The paper also explores the use and functions of open prisons in both countries.
It is useful to begin with a definition of what is meant by “open prison.” In some Scandinavian countries an “open prison” generally means a building with less security and more autonomy inside the building. In other European countries, like Spain, an ‘open prison’ emphasizes contact with the outside world, and therefore the person must be carrying out some activity outside of the facility, only returning to the building to sleep (Martí, 2019). This point reminds us of the necessity of looking behind the labels to find out how ‘open’ an open prison is.
Regarding their function, open prisons can be used at the last part of the sentence, as a way of progression for longer sentences ( and reintegration function), or as entry points, where all short sentences, for example, are served. In England and Wales, being sent to an open prison requires a risk assessment finding of low risk, and the individual must have less than two years left to serve. In Norway, short sentences (up to two years) usually can be served in an open prison, and regarding longer sentences, the law mandates consideration of the possibility of being sent to an open prison at the last part of the sentence. Norway’s policies thus favor having individuals finish their sentences in open prisons.
Those different policy choices explain the different uses of open prisons in both countries. Open prison capacity is 32% in Norway, and 6.5% in England and Wales. Direct entries to open prisons are 65% in Norway, 0% in England and Wales. Fifty percent of the sentenced population spent some time in open prison in Norway, 5% in England and Wales. Release from open prison amount to 54% of releases in Norway, 6.6% in England and Wales. No wonder that the authors assert that when speaking of what makes Norway ‘exceptional’:
“The extensive use of open prisons, and the harm reduction they produce, is the single most important contributor to Norway’s more human punishment practices” (P. 17.)
I turn now to the final point: how open prisons are in fact experienced by the prisoners. I am little bit weary of the literature that focuses on the pains and frustrations of open prisons because it can lead us to some desperation. Like closed prisons, open prisons are also subject to strong criticisms.
Of course, open prisons are not “harm-free” entities. As the relevant literature has pointed out, there is the extreme of being with “one foot out, and one foot in,” and having to be always very careful, and exercising an enormous and continuous amount of self-regulation (like “being put continuously on trial”). In addition, Martí (2019) points out the intrusion experienced by the prisoners, having to follow a set of rules in their daily life outside prison that impacts in their personal and family life (looking for a job and keeping it, no company of suspect friends, no drugs), and that they feel are ‘nobody else’s business’.
In an interesting turn, and without excluding some specific pains of open prisons, the authors Contrasts in Freedom find out that the main harms in open prisons are similar to the ones experienced in closed prisons. For example, the five main problems mentioned by prisoners in Norway are the same: Missing somebody, missing social life, feeling that you have let down your family/friends, feeling that the length of your sentence is unfair, feeling that your life is being wasted. So, one could think that after all “a prison is a prison is a prison.” However, these same problems are experienced in a less severe and acute way than in closed prisons. As the authors state
“It seems clear then, that open prisons are capable of alleviating at least some of the pains of imprisonment” (P. 12.).
As a criminologist with a law degree, I was surprised that the authors did not touch on the issue of who is to decide the classification of prisoners (in open or closed prisons). In some countries this is decided by the sentencing judge, but in Spain this classification is decided by the Prison Administration. This is no minor issue, since these types of imprisonment are so different that one can say that they really are two different kinds of punishments. This, of course, concerns the issue of proportionality. When the judge sentences to three years imprisonment, it is not the same to serve three years in a closed, ordinary prison as in an open prison (not to mention if the administration classifies you in a solitary regime!).
The argument in favor of the classification by prison administration is that this task involves an “individualized evaluation” based on “treatment needs.” I am however very skeptical since the figures at least in Spain have been approximately the same for years: 80% serve in closed ordinary prison and 20% in an open regime, which seems to indicate that by default everybody is placed in an ordinary prison.
The possibility of using open prisons for short sentences, and mandating, as Norway does, consideration of the use of open prisons at the last part of the sentence by law, or as part of sentencing guidelines, might also help alleviate an additional problem: that frequently sentenced people end up in a closed prison not because of the gravity of their offence, but because they don’t meet the requirements used to classify them in an open prison (namely, having a job, family support, and being drug free). In this way, it seems obvious that what is being punished is social exclusion.
In sum, open prisons are not without problems, but as the authors state, they do seem to have many advantages: they are less harmful, more cost effective, they might promote reintegration, and for those concerned with the punitive bite, they are still experienced as a (prison) punishment.
