We Can Actually Do This: Adapting Scandinavian Correctional Culture in Pennsylvania

“WE CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS”: ADAPTING SCANDINAVIAN

CORRECTIONAL CULTURE IN PENNSYLVANIA

Jordan M. Hyatt, Synøve N. Andersen, Steven L. Chanenson, Veronica Horowitz,

and Christopher Uggen*

ABSTRACT

Though incarceration has almost always been a core aspect of punishment in

the United States, a critical consideration of the basic nature of prison environ-

ments is often omitted from conversations about reform. Instead, and for myriad

reasons, modern correctional policy had emphasized the punitive over the

humane. In this way, America is an outlier, distinct from many other Western

nations. From this position, however, there are many opportunities to look to

global peers for a counterfactual; the Scandinavian nations provide an appealing

option. Building upon a comparative, international examination of penal policy,

this Article seeks to leverage these differences to explore how transnational

exchanges can inform domestic policymaking. We examine the Scandinavian

Prison Project, a correctional exchange primarily between Pennsylvania and

Norway, to consider the challenges inherent in such endeavors, as well as oppor-

tunities for encouraging actionable reform in a prison environment.

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1716

I. AMERICAN CARCERAL REALITIES: PERCEPTIONS, REALITIES, AND MAPPING A

BRIGHTER FUTURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1717

A. America’s Relationship with Prisons: An Abridged Examination . . 1717

B. Learning from Foreign Lands? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1724

II. PRINCIPLES FOR FRAMING INTERNATIONAL POLICY EXCHANGES . . . . . . . . 1725

III. SCANDINAVIAN PENAL EXCEPTIONALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1729

IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN PRISON PROJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1735

V. EXPLORING THE EXCHANGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738

A. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738

* Jordan M. Hyatt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Justice Studies at Drexel

University. Synøve N. Andersen is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography

at the University of Oslo. Steven L. Chanenson is a Professor of Law at Villanova University Charles Widger

School of Law. Victoria Horowitz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of

Buffalo. Christopher Uggen is a Regents Professor and the Martindale Chair in Sociology, Law, and Public

Affairs at the University of Minnesota. © 2021, Jordan M. Hyatt, Synøve N. Andersen, Steven L. Chanenson,

Veronica Horowitz, and Christopher Uggen.

The Authors gratefully acknowledge support for this Article and the broader Scandinavian Prison Project from

Arnold Ventures, Drexel University, the Norwegian Research Council for Criminology (“NSfK”), Princeton

University’s Program in Law and Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, University of Oslo, and Villanova

University.

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B. Watching Change Emerge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1739

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1744

Prisoners are persons whom most of us would rather not think about.

Banished from everyday sight, they exist in a shadow world that only dimly

enters our awareness.

—Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.

1

INTRODUCTION

Prisons are too often ignored. As a society, many of us do not like to think about

what happens behind their walls.

2

Despite the American appetite for their use, we

frequently act as if we are blind to the nature of their existence. The public dis-

course often focuses on catching, prosecuting, and sentencing people; interest

evaporates until some of those same people re-offend once released from custody.

Indeed, “[m]ost Americans feel that life in prison and jail does not affect them.”

3

That is demonstrably false.

4

Prisons are part of our criminal justice system and we

all have a collective responsibility—for reasons both noble and egoı

¨stic—to ensure

that they are “safe, humane and productive.”

5

This Article highlights the impor-

tance of caring about prison conditions and suggests that Americans can and

should look abroad to understand how others navigate these waters. For individuals

working in an American correctional system, visiting a starkly different penal sys-

tem for education purposes can, under the right circumstances, provide an opportu-

nity for critical—and potentially transformative—ref‌lection. For example, a

Pennsylvania correctional off‌icer, ref‌lecting on the experience of working inside of

a Norwegian prison, noted that:

There were a couple of things that stood out, especially some key things I

learned [were] really impressive. Some of it was in the staff interaction. Got to

see that f‌irsthand, in addition to the actual living quarters, whereby I got to

observe f‌irsthand the inmates cooking their food in the kitchen, civilian

1. O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 354 (1987) (Brennan, J., dissenting).

2. See, e.g., PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, THE

CHALLENGE OF CRIME IN A FREE SOCIETY 159 (1967) (“Corrections is not only hard to see; traditionally, society

has been reluctant to look at it.”); Steven L. Chanenson, Society Must Not Forget Those It Incarcerates, PHILA.

INQUIRER, Dec. 26, 2016.

3. John J. Gibbons & Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Confronting Conf‌inement: A Report of the Commission on

Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, 22 WASH. U. J.L. & POL’Y 385, 387 (2006). In this Article, we will use

the term “prison” because a state prison is the focus of the associated Scandinavian Prison Project study.

However, many—if not most—of the ideas raised here could apply with equal or greater force to jails.

4. See, e.g., id. at 413 (“The conditions of conf‌inement in our jails and prisons should concern everyone. How

we treat the people we incarcerate and whether we protect and support the staff has consequences that reach

beyond the walls of every institution. Staff return to their families at the end of a shift, and 95 percent of

prisoners are eventually released, most of them to poor and minority communities where crime rates are high and

employment rates are low.”).

5. Id. at 412; see also id. at 398 (“We must remember that our prisons and jails are part of the justice system,

not apart from it.”).

1716 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:1715

clothing attire which I haven’t seen in many, many years. [The Pennsylvania

Department of Corrections] does not permit that . . . . And they were very

receptive, very kind . . . . Say the initial, initial feeling for that was, oh, my

gosh. Are you serious? This is really nice. Then I thought, wow, I don’t know,

we can’t do this, and then I came back and said, no, alright, take a deep breath,

I think we can, there are parts of this we can take away and we can actually do

this. And already, already the wheels are spinning . . . . I felt charged up, ener-

gized, if you will, because I think it’s simply because the folks here that we’ve

met and work with, they’re very serious about their work and they’re happy. It

shows they’re happy that we’ve come here to learn from them. So therefore, I

felt extremely, extremely proud . . . . But these folks here are on point. And

even though they say we’re not perfect and no one’s saying they are.

6

This individual, who so effectively articulates the transition from “are you seri-

ous?” to “we can actually do this,” was participating in an ongoing study named

the Scandinavian Prison Project (“SPP”). This project, detailed in this Article,

explores whether Scandinavian penal values and practices can be adapted success-

fully in the United States, specif‌ically in Pennsylvania.

This Article proceeds in f‌ive Parts. Part I reviews America’s relationship with

prisons, noting that prisons remain central to America’s view of punishment while

prison conditions barely register in the popular imagination. Perhaps it is possible

to learn from the experiences of other countries. Part II explores how international

penal policy exchanges can inform domestic policymaking. Part III explains the

distinctive carceral systems in Scandinavia and why they are widely viewed as

exceptional. Part IV describes the Scandinavian Prison Project, which connects

correctional off‌icials in Pennsylvania with off‌icials in Scandinavia, especially

Norway. Part V chronicles the exchange and reports original qualitative research

stemming from the Scandinavia Prison Project.

I. AMERICAN CARCERAL REALITIES: PERCEPTIONS, REALITIES, AND MAPPING A

BRIGHTER FUTURE

In this Part, the Article starts with a snapshot of how America often interacts

with its prisons. This frequently dispiriting picture sparks the question of whether

it is prof‌itable to look to other countries for inspiration about correctional policy.

A. America’s Relationship with Prisons: An Abridged Examination

Few topics in the United States evoke more passionate emotions than crime and

justice. Americans are concerned about the amount of crime, the expense of

6. Interview with Lee, a pseudonym for a Pennsylvania corrections leader (June 6, 2019). Throughout this

Article, we quote from interviews conducted with participants in the Scandinavian Prison Project (“SPP”). See

infra Part IV. Citations to these interviews, as here, will identify the interviewees, their positions, and the date(s)

of the interviews. To protect the privacy of the participants, however, we refer to them by assigned pseudonyms,

rather than their actual names.

2021] “WE CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS” 1717