The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment

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There are aggressive people who are high on drugs, or withdrawing from drugs, which is not always easy to deal with. There are no plans for a swimming pool, but Høidal does want to make a jogging track through the woods, and a young sports teacher (who is working on specialised programmes for recovering drug addicts) says he hopes to start rock climbing lessons in the summer. How do you pack for a one-way journey back to a country you left when you were eleven and have not visited for fifty years?

most humane prison in the world Inside Halden, the most humane prison in the world

Given the constraints of needing to keep 245 high-risk people incarcerated, creating an environment that was as unprisonlike as possible was a priority for Høidal and the prison's architects.

This is the main meal of the day; afterwards, between four and five prisoners will be locked in their cells for an hour to give the prison guards time for a break, then there will be free time until lock-up at 8. Høidal says, with some relief, that if Breivik is ever transferred to Halden, it won't be for at least a decade, by which point he will have retired.

The Windrush Betrayal | Faber

Amelia Gentleman’s exposé of the Windrush scandal – where thousands of British citizens were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants with life-shattering consequences – shocked the nation and led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary. The large amount of money and thought lavished on inmates at Halden doesn't stop them (politely) expressing their dislike of the place and their desire to leave as soon as possible. An official in the healthcare division says up to 40% of inmates will be taking sleeping pills, and between 10% and 20% are on anti-depressants, but overall the atmosphere is calm. On the whole they don't believe the liberal regime from which they benefit should be extended to him. Everyone who is imprisoned inside Norwegian prisons will be released – maybe not Breivik, but everyone else will go back to society.

With the same tenacity that she used to expose the truth of Windrush in the first place, Gentleman ruthlessly uncovers the crimes that were committed, the injustices that are yet to be rectified and the wounds that might never be healed. The inmates tell Høidal they're annoyed by recent changes to the routine, but they are respectful when they address him. Prisoners have their own fridges, cupboards and desks in bright new pine, white magnetic pinboards and huge, unbarred windows overlooking mossy forest scenery.

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Cost is only one of the reasons prison reformers in the UK don't think there's any prospect of the Halden model being adopted here.

Another prisoner, living in the relative seclusion of Unit A, where he is a year into a sentence for sexual abuse of a minor, pays tribute to the humanity of the prison staff (as opposed to that of the fellow prisoners, who, when they found out what he was in prison for, announced they were going to dismember him). Halden is so new, there are no figures yet for how swiftly and frequently prisoners drift back into prison after their release, but nationwide Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in Europe, just 20% after two years, compared with around 50% in England. There are a few bits of training equipment, but no weights, because Høidal doesn't approve of them: "I see the negative of focusing too much on muscles. He has formed a band with three other inmates and two guards, and performs regularly for fellow inmates. Even if the prison compound has more in common with a modern, rural university campus, with young and enthusiastic staff (who push themselves around the compound on fashionable, silver two-wheel scooters), the key point about it is that hidden behind the silver birch trees is a thick, tall concrete wall, impossible to scale.