HMN 2024: The Prison of the Future: A Humane, Evidence-Based Approach

By Tilia Linthout

Today’s prisons often resemble medieval “oubliettes”, in which offenders are locked up to punish them for their actions and to protect society. Research shows this approach can worsen, rather than improve, society’s safety and problems for incarcerated individuals (e.g., [1]). In response to these insights, policymakers worldwide are increasingly viewing prison as a place for rehabilitation and reintegration rather than mere punishment [2]. The idea that society can have long-term gains by investing more in the prison system so that people leave better prepared is gaining popularity [3,4].

The Impact of Detention on Well-Being and Reintegration of Incarcerated Individuals

Basic needs like autonomy, competence, and relatedness [5,6] are often unmet in prisons, alienating the incarcerated further from the society into which they are later expected to reintegrate [7]. It is therefore not surprising that incarcerated persons typically experience low well-being [8]. Inside prison, this is associated with problems such as drug use, mental health concerns, self-harm, and even suicide [8,9]. In addition, well-being issues often persist post-release. The stigma of being a former incarcerated individual leads to difficulties in, among other things, finding a job [10], despite evidence showing that having a job is crucial for reintegration [11].

You may wonder if it is realistic to expect incarcerated individuals to leave prison—a place where even basic needs are unmet—as better people. High recidivism rates globally highlight the need to invest more in the prison system so that imprisonment can effectively lead to positive change. Indeed, crime and punishment are a huge cost to society, with negative consequences for the incarcerated, their families, prison staff, and the broader population [12].

Reforming Detention: Striving for Humanity

In the Norwegian prison system, the normality principle forms the core of a more humane form of detention [13,14]. This principle starts with the idea that the restriction of liberty is punishment enough and anything that could make a prison sentence heavier should be avoided. Therefore, prisons should strive to create as much correspondence as possible between life inside and outside prison.

For example, in Norway, special attention is given to meaningful activities, healthcare, and rehabilitation opportunities [15,16]. The normality principle is also evident in the custody policies of Norwegian prisons [17]. Specifically, staff use a dynamic surveillance method in which the focus is not on patrolling the corridors, but on evaluating safety through interactions with detainees [18]. For instance, it is commonplace to see an incarcerated individual playing cards with a correctional staff member.

Scandinavian detention is often on a smaller scale than detention in other European countries. Although smaller prisons were not originally designed to promote social interactions and reintegration, researchers noticed that they do yield such benefits (e.g., [19]). Indeed, when detention takes place in smaller groups, more positive and constructive relationships are formed, resulting in a higher quality of life for both incarcerated individuals and prison staff and better rehabilitation and reintegration of the incarcerated [20].

With these findings in mind, the European movement RESCALED advocates a new type of correctional facility, called the detention house, which is built around three core principles for future detention: small-scaled, differentiated, and community-integrated. These principles contrast sharply with the uniform regime of traditional prisons. Within this format of detention, rehabilitation is not only seen as a means of reducing recidivism, but also as an intrinsic personal right of every incarcerated individual. The main goal then is not just to prevent recidivism, but also to minimize the harmful side effects of a prison stay (i.e., detention damage) [21].

Although detention houses are a positive step toward a more humane prison policy, their implementation is still limited. Interestingly, policymakers still often opt for large-scale prisons when building new ones, despite scientific evidence supporting the benefits of small-scale detention [19,20].

The Importance of Evidence-Based Prison Policies for Skills Development

In addition to investing in meaningful activities and supporting incarcerated individuals’ mental health, it is essential to develop skills that are relevant to post-prison life [22,23]. Impulse control is one such skill linked to criminal behavior [24,25,26] that is often a concern for incarcerated individuals themselves [27].

To date, however, the approach to such skills is often not evidence-based. On the contrary, impulse control is repeatedly challenged in prisons without giving incarcerated persons the opportunity to develop this skill [23]. Prison staff and directors often rely primarily on their own intuitive ideas when addressing misconduct [28], typically restricting the only freedoms incarcerated persons have left. This approach is usually ineffective and only results in more frustration for the incarcerated [29].

In implementing evidence-based prison policies that focus on skill development, psychological interventions play a crucial role [22]. However, implementing evidence-based interventions is complicated, as studies conducted within prisons are limited and often methodologically flawed, with issues like lack of a control group and early dropout of participants (e.g., due to incarcerated people being released or transferred to another prison; [30]). In addition, most studies focus only on recidivism as a measure of intervention efficacy, while this has important limitations.

Through evidence-based approaches with more direct behavioral outcome measures, incarcerated individuals can have the opportunity to change their lives and reintegrate into society. It is also important that policymakers are willing to move away from traditional approaches and collaborate with scientists to actively translate scientific evidence into practical applications for prison policy [22].

Tilia Linthout is a researcher at the Learning and Implicit Processes Lab and the Moral & Social Brain Lab at Ghent University. This post is an adaptation of the Dutch article “De Gevangenis van de Toekomst: Een Humaan en Evidence-Based Gevangenisbeleid” which was published on the website of The Inquisitive Mind. DeepL was used to help with the translation (DeepL, 2024).