'Norway needs separate jails for foreigners'
A Norwegian Jail
Norway’s Conservative Party (Høyre) has called for the
construction of rudimentary new jails for foreign criminals.
If the Conservatives win next autumn's election, foreign prisoners can
still expect to be given food and shelter, but very little else, newspaper Aftenposten reports.
”We don’t need to expend resources on the rehabilitation of convicted
criminals who will not be reintegrated into Norwegian society, but will be
deported from the country,” deputy party leader Bent Høie told the paper.
”Nor do we need to offer them education or any other assistance to
prepare them for a life in Norway,” said Høie, the chief architect of the
Conservatives’ draft parliamentary policy programme for the next four years.
The Conservatives say the new jails will enable the country's penal
authorities to prevent Norwegian inmates from mixing with the international
crime syndicates to which many foreign lawbreakers belong.
Explaining why the Conservatives are adopting the plan, Høie said the
party wanted to "bring to an end a situation in which certain foreign
criminals view punishment in a Norwegian prison as a holiday."
The proposal mirrors an idea previously put forward by the right-wing
populist Progress Party, whose leader Siv Jensen welcomed the move from her
fellow opposition party.
Speaking to newspaper Dagbladet, she too used the holiday analogy while
arguing that Norway needs to do much more to keep foreign criminals at bay.
"We'll get a stronger preventive effect if we create a [prison]
regime with stronger deterrents," said Jensen.
The Progress Party leader said her party also intended to recommend
that the Norwegian authorities pay for prison berths in the home countries of
convicted criminals in order to facilitate their repatriation.
The Labour Party's justice policy spokesman, Jan Bøhler, was
unimpressed by the proposals, arguing that the parties’ description of
Norwegian prisons as holiday camps was far divorced from reality.
"In my view, it's irresponsible on the part of centrally placed politicians to present this in such a way," he told Dagbladet.
"In my view, it's irresponsible on the part of centrally placed politicians to present this in such a way," he told Dagbladet.
"Jensen's contribution gives quite a skewed representation of the
reality, which in turn lures criminals into believing that's actually how
things are in Norway," said Bøhler.
In a draft party programme brimming with tougher justice policy plans,
the Conservatives are also calling for stricter punishments for terrorist
offences and crimes against humanity, as well as the implementation of tougher
parole conditions for serious crimes.
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