A thought-provoking article from the The Guardian about Norway’s prison island Bastoy, where inmates are treated like human beings (i.e. sinners in need of mercy) and which has the lowest recidivism rate in Europe (16%!). Don’t call it imputation, but apparently, grace works. A couple choice quotes:
From the warden, Arne Nilsen:
“In closed prisons we keep them locked up for some years and then let them back out, not having had any real responsibility for working or cooking. In the law, being sent to prison is nothing to do with putting you in a terrible prison to make you suffer. The punishment is that you lose your freedom. If we treat people like animals when they are in prison they are likely to behave like animals. Here we pay attention to you as human beings.”
A clinical psychologist by profession, Nilsen shrugs off any notion that he is running a holiday camp. I sense his frustration. “You don’t change people by power,” he says. “For the victim, the offender is in prison. That is justice. I’m not stupid. I’m a realist. Here I give prisoners respect; this way we teach them to respect others. But we are watching them all the time. It is important that when they are released they are less likely to commit more crimes. That is justice for society.”
From a prisoner:
“At 72, Vidor is the oldest prisoner on the island. He works in the laundry and is the house father of his four-man bungalow. I haven’t asked any of the prisoners about their crimes. The information has been offered voluntarily. Vidor does the same. He tells me he is serving 15 years for double manslaughter. There is a deep sadness in his eyes, even when he smiles. “Killers like me have nowhere to hide,” he says. He tells me that in the aftermath of his crimes he was “on the floor”. He cried a lot at first. “If there was the death penalty I would have said, yes please, take me.” He says he was helped in prison. “They helped me to understand why I did what I did and helped me to live again.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLgk0WMI1-Y&w=600]
COMMENTS
20 responses to ““You Don’t Change People By Power”: Grace in a Norwegian Prison”
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Help me understand how this is grace and not simply just a watering down of justice. The Bible clearly teaches that a strict application of justice demands that murderers be executed. (Gen 9:6 ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image’). The warden doesn’t teach this standard of justice. In fact, he teaches the prisoners to reject it:”For the victim, the offender is in prison. That is justice.” Note also the story of Vidor that you included at the end of your article. Vidor rightly thought that he should be executed for killing other people: “If there was the death penalty I would have said, yes please, take me.” But justice,, according to the warden, demands less of these prisoners. It requires only the losing of their freedom.
This is somehow more humane. I think that this contradicts clear biblical teaching. Of the many verses that clearly establish a retributive aspect to justice (i.e. all of the eye-for-an-eye verses), I chose Gen 9:6 above because God grounded that very pronouncement in the truth that we are his image-bearers. Noah’s given the command to carry out retributive justice because humans are image-bearers. But, for the warden, doing anything more than limiting some of the prisoners’ freedom amounts to treating the prisoners like animals. Isn’t that exactly backwards?
Grace is God’s unmerited favor. We deserve death but we get life. This gracious treatment, however, is founded upon God’s fulfilling the righteous requirements of the law in the suffering and sacrifice of Christ. The propitiation put forward by God in Christ is what demonstrates that God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The law isn’t abolished; It’s fulfilled. The demands of justice aren’t watered down; they’re satisfied.
The warden nowhere suggests that these men are the recipients of mercy. They’re getting exactly what they deserve. They’re getting what all humans deserve! He’s not teaching that these men need mercy. He’s teaching that justice is satisfied by their merely being confined for a number of days. He’s teaching that these men have satisfied the law. Isn’t that right?
The Warden’s own words: “In the law, being sent to prison is nothing to do with putting you in a terrible prison to make you suffer. The punishment is that you lose your freedom.” The law and justice are thus satisfied by prisoners sunning themselves on a picnic table.
Romans 12:19, John 8:7, etc. It’s not what they deserve, and it is mercy. But if God has decided that the best way to soften the human heart and produce real change is through mercy, Christian advocacy for a more merciful justice/rehabilitation system seems like a no-brainer.
There’s been a slew of articles in the last few years that have linked America’s worst-in-the-developed world criminal justice system to Christian demands for righteousness and moralistic rhetoric. I’m sympathetic with them – we Americans have among the worst recidivism rates and highest costs of imprisonment, and the only other thing that makes our prison system unique is our unusually harsh sentencings. One of the few prison systems in the world in which going to jail makes you more likely to commit a crime, not less – or that’s what the statistics say, at least.
If God treats sinners a certain way (undeserved forgiveness), perhaps being an image-bearer (in the functional, co-regency way) means imitating that mercy, to the best of our limited ability.
But we don’t need theology to say any of this – economists in foreign and domestic press have said it all, already.
R-J, Very provocative. Interesting how controversial the penal system is when used analogically to explain God’s mercy vs. judgement and such grace put into practice. There is a good video on YouTube of the place.
I think your making some assumptions when you say that “God has decided that the best way to soften the human heart and produce real change is through mercy” that I can’t agree with. The softening of the human heart that happens in Christian conversion and repentance are the effect of the unique power of the Gospel and the work of the Spirit on the heart. To attribute this change to the power of mercy in general seems a bit hasty and not biblical. I’m not denying that a clear understanding of God’s mercy properly motivates a life of gratitude. I just don’t think that mercy is the only way.
The conversions following Peter’s sermon on Pentecost come to mind as an example of a change in heart (i.e. their being cut to the heart) that happened before they really even heard about God’s mercy. They no doubt needed to hear of that mercy to be converted but were had God not actually prepared them for this by leading them to a state of panic captured in their cry of ‘What shall we do?’ Paul used grief to lead the Corinthians “to a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.” Doesn’t Paul in Rom 2 also bemoan the fact that even though God’s patience and forbearance are readily apparent to all, it’s not actually leading to repentance. I think also of when Nathan confronted David concerning his sins. Also the heart of the Philippian jailer seemed to be opened to the gospel by good old fashioned fear.
I fear that when you ascribe all positive changes of the heart to mercy you undermine the unique power of the Gospel and work of the Spirit. I’m no political activist. I would prefer Christians to ground their public square rhetoric in the teachings of the natural law and, to be sure, if the social science prove something to be effecting for accomplishing a desirable goal, then by all means we should learn from them.
What concerns me more is protecting the church from being overrun by social activists. And I think there’s a risk here. The gospel is not the good news that mercy changes hearts. I’m not saying you hold to this, but it some people tend to think that best thing about the gospel is that it gives us a blueprint for reforming society or building God’s Kingdom or undertaking some other social program.
And while Romans 12 does speak of the Christian’s role to love even those who persecute the Church, Romans 13 teaches that civil rulers wield the sword to ‘punish evil’ not to rehabilitate criminals or deter crime but to punish evil. Doesn’t that juxtaposition teach us something about the distinct roles of the church and the state?
And if this ‘social mercy’ takes the form of just redefining justice then how is it appreciated as mercy in the hearts of the men who receive it? These prisoners will undoubtedly leave prison with an I-paid-my-debt-to-society attitude if they believe what their warden teaches them. That’s a far cry from the humble Christian who pursues a life of gratitude because he has come to understand his own wretchedness, the eternal suffering that was his due because of his sin, and the suffering that Christ willingly undertook to set him free from that penalty. Christians love because God first loved us. We are to show mercy because God first showed us mercy. I don’t see how any similar motivation can arise from the program discussed in the article.
I apologize for the careless grammar and rambling nature of my posts. I’m sort of thinking through these things as I’m writing them. And thanks for replying.
RL: I don’t mean to get all pastoral, but just for kicks, can you recall a time when you deserved punishment but received mercy, from another human being? What did it do to you? You’re right to point out that man’s grace is different than God’s, but surely one echoes the other? And, in contrast to a world that tells us that control is always the answer, surely we must stand up and say “no”, if only for the sake of our children?
RJ: Be as pastoral as you like. I love pastors. I am blessed in that I can recall several times when I have been shown mercy for all sorts of bad things that I have done to others. I tend to give people plenty of opportunity to show me mercy. Those instances do, of course, tend to engender warm feelings toward the forgiving person. But not always. I’ll confess to also abusing the graciousness of others at times and using their kindness and patience as an opportunity to ‘get away with stuff.’ As I grow older, this tends to happen less. But I’m not denying the power of mercy to melt a heart. I don’t think I said that anywhere.
What I think I’m trying to point out may not even be a ‘theological issue’ at all. Let me grant that demonstrations of mercy and grace are the most powerful ways one can change the heart of another. But for it to have this heart-changing effect doesn’t mercy have to be understood as mercy for it to be effective? For grace to be appreciated as grace it has it to be recognized by the recipient as a gift and not as his due wages. I think that the program as outlined in the article actually undermines the changing power of the grace being shown to the prisoners by the state and their victims by redefining their privileges as something due them for simply being a human or for otherwise satisfying the demands of justice by peacefully surrendering their freedom as recompense. Does that make since?
You and I can see the grace (or perhaps forbearance) that these prisoners are receiving. Some of the victims and their families might be acutely aware of it. Shouldn’t we also try to make the prisoners aware of it. This prison program, I think, redefines this ‘social grace’ as ‘social justice.’ Doesn’t something similar underlie the difference between a spoiled kid and a kid who receives gift graciously? One sees himself as simply entitled to things. The other sees them as gifts and appreciates the graciousness of giver. Isn’t that what teaching them to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ is all about?
Does this make sense at all?
I think I may have some other qualms (for example the use of the words ‘mercy’ or ‘forgiveness’ when no propitiation has been put forth gives me some pause; I would prefer ‘forbearance’ since that’s how I think the Bible labels God’s temporary looking over of the sins of those who do not yet have access to Christ’s redemptive work through faith; ‘mercy’ and ‘forgiveness’ seem to be used only for believers). But if we can’t find some common ground on the basics, I don’t think we should move on to this.
Everything you say about Christian families seems exactly right. I don’t have kids so I try to avoid offering advice on how to raise them. The gracious and self-sacrificial love that defines the relationship between the Divine Father and his Son, and which is extended to all Christians as his adopted sons, should be the model for Christian households.
Many of the references to God’s wrath in scripture are expressed as MERCY to those who are afflicted. And it is the government’s job as God’s deacon to exercise his justice for the sake of the afflicted. The proverb says it well, “it is the glory of God to overlook a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter.” I think we should treat prisoners with dignity as image bearers, but let’s not mistake the prison system for a picture of the gospel. Or call it a failure for being harsh. God created pain too, and grace never works apart from it.
RJ, loved this and I think echoes is a great image for what you’re getting at, showing the congruency of human and divine mercy, the possibly direct relationship between the two, and the qualitative superiority of divine mercy, both in quality and effect.
When will “Jesus Dropped the Charges” get old? Never. It will never get old.
From the same Guardian article:
“Prisoners in Norway can apply for a transfer to Bastoy when they have up to five years left of their sentence to serve. Every type of offender, including men convicted of murder or rape, may be accepted, so long as they fit the criteria, the main one being a determination to live a crime-free life on release.”
What the other “criteria” are for transfer are not stated, but there is obviously a selection process involved to determine which prisoners from the general prison population to send to Bastoy. This means that any statistical comparison of recidivism rates to the general prison population of “Europe” is meaningless, not to mention the vast cultural, demographic and legal system difference in the various European countries, all of which impact recidivism rates. This means that even from the 30% rate for the general population in Norway stated in the article it is very problematic to attempt to draw any conclusions. For example, the recidivism rate for homicide and rape for those same crimes in the U.S. is extremely low (less than 2.5%), while the rate for robbery is very high (over 70%). What is considered criminal behavior that would lead to reincarceration in Norway is not the same as in Great Britain or Spain or the U.S., and this too impacts any statistical analysis. I have no idea how God feels about any of this, and we can all share our various convictions, but making “gospel” inferences based on this Guardian article may be a bit of a stretch.
Thank you for some sanity Michael. It is easy to make sweeping generalizations and propose easy remedies for our prison system. But there isn’t just one problem, and there certainly aren’t any simple solutions.
I remain confused by the fact that we’re calling Norway’s law gracious. Can someone help?
Norway’s law forces offenders to go to prison. Norway’s law forces some offenders to go to this prison. Norway’s law determines when the prisoners are released. After serving the term mandated by the law, some prisoners seem to break the law less when they are released. This is attributed to grace. Where’s the grace? All I see is law, law, law. Norway’s law might be better than America’s law. But isn’t it still law? Is it even possible to gracious law?
I don’t see any mention of any prison receiving mercy or forbearance or whatever from the demands of Norway’s law. In fact the warden seems adamant that the conditions on his prison island satisfy the demands of Norway’s law.
I’m new to the blog. I need some help understanding these categories. Please forgive me for being the overly-enthusiastic-new-guy-peppering-the-blog-with-questions. Just as soon as I start to think I’m ‘getting it’ I get all confused again.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?” (Rom. 6:14–16).
Might the law of Norway be enlightened by grace and thereby come, in some measure, to reflect grace? Law in a sense is always aspirational. I am aware of the limitations and risks inherent in any code of law, but am untroubled by “watered down” justice if such is measured by the failure of some countries to live up to the Bible’s most blood-thirsty examples.
I do not lie awake nights fretting over the risk that the church may be overrun by social activists, because in my experience, members of the church have much more often worked purposefully against “social activism”, as if it were some attempt to usurp what is rightly God’s. Yet these same people take refuge under what they proclaim as “Natural Law” and use it as an instrument of man-imposed judgment on others, whom they would permanently brand.
Killers walk through the pages of the Bible, yet how many are put to justice? Christ himself on the Cross states of his jailers, persecutors, and those that delivered him into their hands, that “they know not what they do”. Yet he does not physically free himself or his cross mate, and accepts the earthly injustice imposed on him, as well as the justice meted out to the thief, presumably more properly pursuant to some earthly law. I do not understand this to be an endorsement by Christ of harsh earthly justice, any more than I see “the poor will always be with you” as permission to ignore the want and suffering of those around me.
Thanks for the reply. It’s helpful. I will never tire of reading that passage from Romans. Thanks for adding it to my day!
I think that my comments are coming off as more adversarial than I had intended. It was a mistake for me to describe Norway’s sentencing system as ‘watered-down justice.’ I didn’t mean by those words to disparage more lenient legal systems and promote strict ‘high-octane justice’ systems. I was trying to ask what I tried to ask more clearly in my last post. Given the importance of the law-grace distinction, can we say that some civil laws are gracious. Your response helps tremendously by providing the category of a ‘law enlightened by grace.’
I think we agree completely that the law is not the remedy for sin and that it even makes sin worse and people more wicked. {I leave room for it to lead a sinner to grace by humiliating sinners–I’m not sure where you all tend to stand on that}. So given this is this ‘law enlightened by grace’ law? Or is it grace? Is it neither? Is it both? I’m still struggling here.
My concern about ‘social activism’ taking over the church is could also be stated more clearly. It’s not social activism per se that’s the problem. Christians are called to be model citizens of the nation and state in which we currently live. This means we will be socially and culturally active. What I have seen in churches is that certain distinct expressions or forms of social activism become a law within congregations; whether it’s done explicitly from the pulpit (as when say a pastor calls the congregation to protest an abortion clinic) or implicitly through the social structure of the congregation (as when say there’s a push for people to volunteer for a some political candidate and the church’s social life tends to happen at volunteer events). Do you see what I mean? We are called to be great citizens and we have freedom in how we decide to pursue the social the goals that the Bible sets for us (ideally this freedom is informed by wisdom and learning).
I advocate for using appeals to natural law in the public square simply because we live in a pluralistic society. So when in the public square I shouldn’t just bombastically proclaim that my position is biblical and should thus be adopted. That’s not very persuasive to people who aren’t Christians. It also to often causes us to miss the great chance to express and articulate are position through what we hold in common with others whether they’re Christian or not. My position is that our worldview is derived from the Bible. The Bible sets our agenda. But when advocating for those goals in society we turn to the wealth of wisdom, learning, and culture that we share with other concerned citizens.
My most pressing concern now is that I still seem to be misunderstanding the law-grace distinction and how this distinction is being applied to this case.
RL, Love the enthusiasm! This has been a big issue batted around on this site a few times, so if you’re looking for some more it’s easy to find if you do some digging. I wrote something a few years (!) back on Tolstoy’s “The Forged Coupon”. I think there was also a post titled “Does Imputation Exist”.
Not to speak for RJ, but the idea of the post was to point to a secular institution and the effectiveness of its gracious treatment of criminals. If I’m reading you correctly, it sounds like you dispute that this can truly be called grace, since it seems to be an function of Norway’s Laws. I certainly receive the point – absolutely speaking, the charges are not dropped, the prisoners are not freed, there are conditions the prisoners need to meet, etc. –all these things are true and could give one caution to call this program “gracious”.
But as I see it, I’m still happy with calling it grace – even if it is only an echo of grace – since the premise of the program is to give prisoners freedom and to treat them as though they are not prisoners. I call it grace because the program seems to function above and beyond how these prisoners deserve to be treated. They deserve to be locked in a cell until their sentence is up. They deserve to do “hard time” without any freedoms.
So, inasmuch as this program functions beyond the normal expectations of justice and this-for-that thinking, or notions of deserving or worth, then it can be called gracious – even if it is not grace in an absolute sense. That this program “works”, I think is remarkable, if not miraculous. Even beyond the recidivism rate, I’m surprised that there aren’t any reported runaway prisoners.
MC (hammer) – I wondered whether you might comment! Glad to “see” you here. I think you’re right that the success rate numbers might not be comparable. It’s still an interesting idea, no? And it’s certainly a better idea that much of what I hear is an already overburdened US justice system.
Todd, Thanks for your comments. My own personal view as an attorney is that incarceration of any kind for nonviolent offenders is a waste of time and money for the state and for the convicted, and that ridiculously long prison terms in the U.S. are driven more by politicians sucking up to the “get tough on crime” masses rather than by any desire for “justice” (whatever that is). I also think that the general condition of our prisons is appalling, and that privatization of the prison system has interjected a capitalistic profit motive into the mix that is extremely harmful. But those are just my personal views…as I said, I have no idea what God might think about it. I just don’t think we can draw any theological conclusions based on the article, such as “Grace works.” It may, or it may not, but nothing in the article supports either assertion.