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The nicest prison in the world

Prisoners serving time at Bastoy prison in Norway are more likely to be sunning themselves on a beach or strolling through a pine forest than sitting in a cramped cell. It’s no surprise then, that Bastoy has been called the world’s nicest prison.

Bastoy sits on a small island and is home to 115 prisoners. Some of the inmates have committed very serious and violent crimes. Bastoy is the largest low-security prison in Norway, but it’s more community than prison. Prisoners live in shared homes with their own bedrooms and shared facilities. They can wear their own clothes, visit the prison shop, library or church.

In their spare time they can go fishing, play football, or work out at the gym. There’s a movie room and a weekly agenda of courses, lectures, events and concerts. They even run the island’s ferry service, but nobody seems tempted to alter course and make a break for freedom.

It couldn’t be more different from the more traditional approach of harsh punishment for criminals. Not surprisingly critics say Bastoy is more a holiday camp than a correctional facility. But Norwegian authorities insist this softer approach is more effective.

The prison demands a respectful relationship between prisoners, as well as with guards. Most of the prison officers leave the island overnight. Prisoners are expected to take responsibility for themselves. Apart from one meal a day that’s provided, the inmates feed themselves.

Bastoy is what Norway calls an “ecological prison”. Inmates work every day, tending the horses and sheep, helping run the farm, or chopping down trees for fuel. They undergo training programmes, learning new skills in preparation for release.

“Life inside prison needs to resemble life outside, as much as security considerations and resources allow," explained Gerhard Ploeg, senior adviser in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice. "The more gradual the transformation from imprisonment to freedom, the better the chances to prevent re-offending.”

“But prisoners are required to take responsibility for their actions – past, present and future. Besides, we believe it is more effective for a person to want to stay away from crime than for systems to try to scare them away from it.” 

Norway has the lowest reoffending rate in Scandinavia. Two years after release, only 20% of prisoners have been reconvicted. By contrast, a study of 29 American states - America has the world’s largest prison population - found a much higher rate of reoffending. 

Over 50% of prisoners in the United States will be back in jail within three years of their release.
Norway also has a continuing care policy, whereby everyone released from prison will have access to services to help them with housing, employment, and healthcare. This contact with community services begins well before they are released. For instance, they are allowed to start jobs on the outside 18 months before leaving the prison.
“You are free, but you are not free,” says one prisoner. 
It’s true that some of the inmates are inside for violent crimes, but they don’t begin their sentences in Bastoy. Prisoners have to apply to come to the island prison, having demonstrated a clear willingness to change while serving time in more traditional jails. 
There is no such thing as a life sentence in Norway. The longest prison sentence is 21 years, or 30-year maximum sentence for crimes related to genocide, crimes against humanity or other war crimes. 
The average sentence is around 8 months. More than 60% of unconditional prison sentences are up to 3 months, and almost 90% are less than a year.
According to experts, longer prison sentences don’t provide a strong deterrent, and the link between harsh punishment and reduction of crime is far from clear cut. 
The obvious question with a prison without walls or armed guards is the risk of escape. In 2015 one prisoner did just that, using a surfboard and a paddle. But it’s extremely rare. If caught, they will not be able to go back to Bastoy.

From World Economic Forum

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The Robots That Fold Laundry Are Coming

Sakane standing next to a mock-up of the Laundroid, his laundry-folding robot, in Tokyo.
Photo credit: Ko Sasaki Credit

Cars can now drive themselves. Cellphones talk to us. How long will it be until laundry can fold itself?

At least two companies are promising to bring laundry-folding robots for the home to market by the end of 2017. Known as Laundroid and FoldiMate, both machines work by analyzing each garment they take in, figuring out its ideal folding shape and delivering a drawer-ready stack of smoothly folded clothes.

Laundroid is slightly smaller than a typical refrigerator. The robot arms are inside.

The FoldiMate, more compact, has large clips dangling outside, making it look like a mash-up of a clothesline and a plastic oven.

A working prototype of Laundroid — backed by about $90 million in investment capital— will be publicly demonstrated at the end of this month in Tokyo. It will retail — only in Japan, at first — for about $16,000. Seven Dreamers, the company introducing Laundroid, aims to bring the cost down to $2,000 a unit and begin international sales by next year.

Laundroid has an insert box and four smaller drawers for up to 30 items of clean clothing.

“The robot arm picks up the clothes one by one and then artificial intelligence recognizes if this is a T-shirt or pants or pajamas,” Shin Sakane, Laundroid’s inventor, said in a Skype interview from Japan.

Gal Rozov, an inventor of FoldiMate, said his machine requires users to clip each article of clothing to its front. The machine then pulls each into itself and folds.

Via a crowdfunding campaign on, Mr. Rozov’s company has taken in about 8,000 deposits of $85, each granting the customer a 10 percent discount off the final product, which has a target price of $850, he said. The company aims to open pre-orders by the end of the year and to start deliveries at the end of 2018.

Mr. Sakane received a Ph.D. in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Delaware in 2000 and returned to his native Japan to work for his father’s company, Industrial Summit Technology, which is known for selling a component that improves the efficiency of laser printers. Mr. Sakane wanted to work on fully realized consumer products.

He formed his own company, Seven Dreamers, which already has two inventions on the market: One, called Nastent, is a tube that slides up the nose to stop snoring (not yet for sale in the United States); the other is a carbon-fiber golf shaft that is meant to decrease drag.

Mr. Sakane said he was looking for a business idea more than a decade ago when he asked his wife, “Is there anything in your mind which is not available anywhere in the world, something to use at home and something that you really, really want to have?

“And she said, ‘Of course! It’s a laundry-folding robot!’ And then I thought ‘Yes, this is it!’”

So, has Mr. Sakane brought a Laundroid into his own home yet?

“Not yet,” he said. “My wife keeps asking me when.”

Last year, about 17 million washers and dryers were sold in the United States, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. Mr. Sakane projected that Laundroid sales could reach 20 million units a year worldwide.

It’s an attractive future. 

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Article edited from The New York Times