The criminal justice system of the United

The criminal justice system of the United States is often criticized as overly harsh and ineffective as a rehabilitation tool. It is said to ruin inmates lives with its brutality and extreme sentencing, driving them to return to crime after release due to a lack of other opportunities. The given approach produces multiple adverse effects on people and complicates their resocialization and reintegration with societies. In such a way, formerly incarcerated people have many barriers preventing them from living in communities and increasing recidivism rates. On the other hand, Nordic and Scandinavian prison systems are often considered exemplary, featuring minimally harsh conditions and intended to help the inmates return to society. Through their innovative open prison concept, they let people keep working or , which should address their issues after release and prevent them from returning to crime. Possessing skills and knowledge that can be useful in the future, former prisoners acquire the chance to find a job, find a place in communities, and avoid committing new crimes. In such a way, a milder approach to working with offenders has multiple advantages that can help to reintegrate them into society. A comparison of the differences in the opportunities that the two systems provide and the results that they achieve is therefore warranted.

Research Question

Fassin (2016) describes the harshness of the American prison system, up to and including its 60 super max prisons with next to no human contact. On the other hand, Lee (2019, 194-195) provides the example of the Danish Falster prison, the worlds most humane maximum security facility. Additionally, per . (2018, 418), only 202 of the U.S.s 4627 postsecondary education facilities provided courses for prisons. On the other hand, prison education is normalized in much of Scandinavian law (Cleere 2020), and people in open prisons can continue learning as normal. The the existence of critical differences between the two systems and approaches used by the governments to work with offenders. The radical divergence between the penitentiary systems triggers multiple debates about their effectiveness and the impact on the future life of people. The opponents argue whether the mild approach can help to reduce recidivism rates and assist formerly incarcerated people in their attempts to function in society. The differences in opinions and visions precondition the need for the of both paradigms to compare and conclude about the influence they might have on people. As such, the research question for this paper would be, Do the conditions at Scandinavian prisons and their education opportunities reduce the recidivism rates among inmates compared to those in the United States?