Locked Up Abroad: JSBP Edition

I figured there might come a time when one of us might find ourselves behind bars - just didn't think we would all be crammed in a cell together. Or that Molly would be there, too.

Yesterday, we took a train to Eger in northeastern Hungary. The town is best known for its red and white wines, sold up and down the cobblestone streets. The JSBP hooligans visited for an introduction to the Hungarian prison system. From the outside, the Heves County Prison looks like just another building. It fits unassumingly into the city block, set back from the sidewalk just a bit. If not for the small sign hung out front, I would have never known what lay inside.

After a security check - forking over our passports, stashing all electronics in a locker, setting off metal detectors without actually getting patted down - we followed the prison's governor into a cramped room for a brief presentation. The Heves County Prison houses all sorts - men, women, adults, juveniles, remand. Like the United States, most prisons in Hungary are overcrowded. The current capacity exceeds the official capacity by more than 50 prisoners. In the United States, there are about 750 prisoners per 100,00 of the national population. In Hungary, the figure is only 149. The issue is not more arrests or convictions, however, but longer imposed lengths of incarceration. In the Heves County Jail, most prisoners are locked up for fewer than five years. The stark contrast pointed out by the presentation clearly illustrated the flaws in our American prison system. The United States is a leading, powerful nation, yet we still have 23.4% of the world's adult prison population. (Here's a link to the 2010 World Prison Population List, which offers some pretty amazing statistics, broken down country-by-country. ) I would have never guessed that, while learning about the Hungarian prison system, I would stumble across such an enormous error in our own.

The most startling contrast, however, came when the prison's governor gave us a tour around the prison. I've never visited an American prison, but I do have a bizarre affinity for the show Lockup on MSNBC. Most of the American prisons that I've toured through television are stark, stainless steel institutions. Here, however, the walls and railings were painted yellow. Natural light shined in from a few windows, even with bars across them. In the women's wing, knitted pictures were hung up on the walls. On stools inside the women's cells, there were cushions embroidered with initials - probably the prisoner's work. I kept thinking back to American prisons, and imagining a more bleak scene. Perhaps that's part of the reason, if only just a little, that our prisons keep seeing the return of the same criminals. Like the Governor quoted, if we treat the prisoners like animals inside the prison, we can only expect animals to be released back into society.

We were also permitted to tour one of the empty prison yards outside. As we entered through the enormous block doors, a rottweiler lunged at us from a tiny chain cage. It only drove the governor's point home - if we treat our prisoners like anything but humans, we cannot expect them to fully recover a position as a fully-functioning member of society. In Norway - again, my knowledge is a result of prison documentaries - the prisons are completely different. There aren't bars, cages, barbed wire, and, at one Norwegian prison, guns. One prison located on an island offers farms, beaches, and a soccer field. (Take a video tour of the Norway prison system here - a little bit of an overdramatic portrayal, but the photographs are good.) This progressive prison system yields the lowest reoffending rate in the world - 20%. The focus is on continuing the aspects of regular society in jail, so that prisoners have an easier time returning to the general population. In light of the recent island massacre, however, we must realize that no prison system has the capability to deter crime or reform all criminals.

All in all, I was pretty fascinated by our adventure into the Hungarian prison system. I was impressed by the knowledge and insight offered by the prison's governor, and intrigued to explore the differences between our two systems.