Victoria University James Cook Research Fellow Prof John
Pratt has spent six months behind bars. Photo by Gerard
O'Brien.
Prof John Pratt has spent six months of the past five
years behind bars, all in the name of research.
The James Cook Research Fellow in Social Science at the
Victoria University Institute of Criminology has been
comparing the penal systems of New Zealand, Australia, and
England with Norway, Sweden and Finland, and has found "huge
differences" in the systems.
He spoke of his research during a presentation at the Dunedin
Howard League for Penal Reform at the Savoy this week.
"I've spent six months behind bars in the last five years,
but it feels as if I've done a long sentence."
His research had found prisoners in Scandinavia had more
personal space, better conditions within the rooms and the
prison environment was more relaxed than for their
counterparts in New Zealand, Australia and England.
"It's more humane. Relationships between inmates and staff
are much friendlier and relaxed."
Despite arguments that prisons with hotel-esque facilities
encouraged criminals to reoffend, Prof Pratt did not agree
they were an incentive to commit crime. Based on his research
in Scandinavia, he found prison was still a place
Scandinavians did not want to be.
"They want to go home. They want to be free from any
involvement in the penal system.
"The more you treat prisoners like human beings and don't
further shut them out of society, the more likely it is they
are going to respond to you like human beings, and be more
interested in rehabilitation.
"Norway has a remarkably low rate of reconviction. It's only
20% there, whereas in New Zealand, it's 45%."
While he hoped he would never have to serve time, he said if
he did, he would want to serve it in a Scandinavian prison.
"I would like to think I could do my time with ease and be a
lot less ruined if I did my sentence in Norway."
Prof Pratt's research will be complete in March next year,
and it was hoped his findings would be published in a book in
November next year, titled Contrasts in Punishment - An
Explanation of Anglophone Excess and Nordic Exceptionalism.
john.lewis@odt.co.nz
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