Goal for Reintegration: One way to reduce recidivism is by influencing a person's behavior and environment. Reintegration is the process by which criminals are effectively molded to terminate their criminal behavior and integrate as functioning members of society. There are four factors of reintegration:

• Individual’s characteristics

• Family/peer relationships

• Community contexts

• State policies 

Normalization: The prison system in Norway gives inmates contained freedom (openness) within the rehabilitation process as they believe it's important to keep inmates connected to the free world.

• INTRODUCE THIS LAST AS A TRANSITION

Normalization Factors:

1. Design: 

   1. Prisons that are open with less security are best equipped to follow the principle of Normalization. 

   2. Among the living spaces, furniture should be comfortable and not restrained to the floor by bolts. 

   3. Inmates should be free to flow where they decide to within prison walls.

2. Facilities and Services:

   1. Inmates should have access to media that can entertain and inform them.

   2. Access to prison facilities and services should not be limited.

   3. A communal kitchen is beneficial in adding a sense of normalcy.

      1. Location and culture play a major role in the formation of what people perceive to be normal. The four Normalization factors must be altered to fit the culture of the society trying to implement its principle, meaning when implemented properly Normalization should look unique to the prison it is implemented at.

3. Atmosphere: 

   1. Religion and religious activities help stimulate routine.

   2. Animals such as dogs can positively impact prisoners as they create a home-like environment.

4. Identity: 

   1. Retaining pre-incarceration social status and occupational skills.

   2. Religion can help inmates find a purpose and bond over positive subjects.

   3. Personal hygiene allows prisoners to have more self-confidence. making them more comfortable and willing to change.

Normalization’s Limitations:

1. Where should prisons draw a line? The use of recreational drugs?

   1. “Alcohol use, for example, is legal in free society but is prohibited in prison (the same is true for the possession of other contraband items, such as mobile phones and medication that is not prescribed)” (van de Rijt, van Ginneken, Boone, 2023).

2. Technology Use - Should inmates be able to use the internet, and how?

3. Daily Schedule - Should inmates be able to plan their day?

Socialization is Key: It has been found that people who engage in criminal activity tend to have more developmental delays than those who don’t. This inherently causes a slower rate of developmental growth in a criminal’s brain.

Animal Assisted Interventions: To help facilitate developmental growth, animals can be used almost as service animals to help inmates forge relationships to others.

Conforming to Society: In many cases, prisoners don’t feel like they can fit into society, some might feel alone, and others might have an undiagnosed mental illness. Training shelter dogs can help prisoners gain a sense of purpose as they are involved with positive behavior, and doing socially acceptable activities.

• The use of Animal Assisted Intervention can help prisoners conform to social standards.

Inmates who participate in correctional education programs decrease their odds of returning to prison by 43%

Some prisons in the United States try to strengthen the bonds prisoners have with their families

• There is no system ensuring all prisoners in the United States have access to these programs

19th-Century Prisons: Many nineteenth-century prisons are very cold and hostile environments, which aren’t beneficial in reforming the mindset of a criminal.

• “Nineteenth century prisons are usually considered the least healthy environments within the UK penal estate and, at the time of writing, there are still 29 Victorian jails in operation” (Moran, Jewkes 2015).

Carceral Geography: The role that a prison's geography plays in translation to a prisoner’s growth.

Lack of Care: The free mass public doesn’t care about the prison system and the hardships that prisoners face, which is why there is not much research on how the prison surroundings affect prisoners. 

• “Whilst ADT is one of a multitude of factors which shape prisoner experience, such as prison management regimes, staff attitudes, and so on, it is the least researched.” (Moran, Jewkes, 2015).

Risks Linked to Prisoners Reoffending: Many prisoners aren’t given enough support to face the problems in their lives which increases the odds of them returning to prison if there is no intervention.

• Poor Prisoner Physical and Mental Health - Lack of Medical Care Access

• Substance Abuse - Lack of Rehabilitation Access

• Homelessness - Unable to afford the cost of living

Interprofessional Practice: “The action of systematically bringing services together to support individuals” (Dugdale, Lahtinen, Kajamaa, & Hean, 2022).

• To enable prisoners to become functioning members of society, support networks of interprofessional practices must be created to ensure that all parties are on the same page when determining a prisoner's rehabilitation path.

• Promotes collaboration, coordination, networks, and teamwork through the lenses of criminal justice, mental health, and welfare services.

The Norwegian Prison System is an avid user of interprofessional practice as it influences rehabilitation.

This program focused on creating a positive prison culture from the inside out, by focusing on building community

• "‘Those core group of guys, they’re definitely impacting others, or at least the others are kind of seeing, what it’s doing for those guys who are involved" (Prison Guard Quote)

• A participant called the program a "brotherhood"

Programs like these aren't significantly funded by the United States government.

EMPLOY Program: A program that inmates must apply to (meaning they have a good prison record) beginning before they are released from prison training them how to become a functioning member of society. Prisoners gain skills in writing their resumes, mock interviews, and searching for a job. Right before release former inmates are matched with a job giving them hope for life post-release.

The current United States Prison system places a major emphasis on punishment rather than rehabilitation, the main goal of the prison system is to reduce crime and recidivism by spending the least amount of money possible

• The stigma that prisoners are in jail to keep the public safe has been propagated throughout the U.S. by its “imperialist, racial capitalism"

Prisoners tend to have a weak support network which allows them to continue to lead a life of crime

A maximum-security prison in Halden, Norway. This prison uses unconventional methods to rehabilitate its prisoners rather than the normal punitive approaches most prisons around the globe take.

• Prison Governor, Are Hoidal: "We don't want anger and violence in this place. We want calm and peaceful inmates." (Kirby, 2019).

Halden Prison costs £98,000 per year. The average annual cost of the best prisons in Wales is about £40,000, or £59,000.

Halden Prison follows the belief of “Normalization” which is why this prison has been so successful and controversial at the same time. Viewing prisoners as people and in a humane manner isn’t widely accepted as they are perceived as bad people, which might be the case, but it calls to question whether bad people can/should be changed for the better.