Fewer naked visits make prison guards feel unsafe. Worried about the introduction of drugs and weapons.

Prisoners in western Norway no longer receive routine physical visits when they enter prison. This will lead to more smuggling, prison officials believe.

– Control measures must be repeated as soon as possible. It’s about employee safety, says Morten Aksdal.

He is a first officer at the Bergen prison and a regional union steward in the Norwegian Association for Prisons and Probation. He believes a new body search instruction in the West Region of the Prison and Probation Service will lead to more drug and gun imports.

The instruction came two weeks ago and applies to Vestland and Møre og Romsdal prisons. Routines for body searches may vary between different prisons, but at Bergen Prison, body searches are performed each time inmates enter the prison.

During body searches, inmates dress naked to avoid introducing unwanted objects. However, the visit should not be routine, but should only be carried out if the responsible officer considers it necessary. Body scanners that detect metal objects can still be performed as standard whenever possible.

– It will facilitate the smuggling of illegal drugs and dangerous objects, says Aksdal.

I visited almost 200 times in a year and a half.

The regional director of the western region of the Prison and Probation Service, Ketil Evjen, says that the background for the change is a ruling by the Gulating Court of Appeal this summer.

In the drug case, the defendant’s defense attorney requested a reduction of the sentence based on extensive body searches. During 16 months in custody in Bergen prison, he was searched almost 200 times.

The man in his 40s told Bergens Tidende that the visits made him feel uncomfortable and degraded:

– They make me nauseous, my stomach knots, I get angry.

The court granted the defendant a six-month reduction in his sentence in July. The ruling states that regulations for the body searches of prisoners in Norway violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) prohibition against degrading treatment.

Body searches are not illegal, but require “professional evaluations” that are based on “specific and important security considerations,” the court writes.

– This means that we can no longer have body searches as a routine, without an evaluation being carried out every time a record is kept, says regional director Evjen.

Must visit step by step

The extensive practice of body searches at Bergen prison was introduced in 2018. But after attention to the question this winter, the prison changed its routines from March 20 this year.

Among other things, individual risk assessments for body searches should be carried out when inmates are visited or released from prison. Body searches should also be done step by step, so that the inmate is never completely naked. But Bergen Prison has kept visitation as the standard for inmates entering the prison until now.

Both incremental visits and individual risk assessments are recommended by the Civil Ombudsman, who harshly criticized the Bergen prison in 2018. Following the Gulating ruling, it is now clear from case law that these two measures are prerequisites for the body search is legal.

It will apply to the whole country.

Lise Sannerud, Director of the Norwegian Prison and Probation Service, is not aware of any other cases where prisons have violated the law with their body search practice than Bergen prison. She says that the jurisprudence that has now led to changes in the western region will apply to the entire country.

– We have already made a verbal commitment in this regard. Working on the issue is a priority, so we hope to send a formal evaluation of the issue to all the prisons in the country in the not too distant future, he says.

Feeling insecure

Union representative Aksdal believes that visits on the way to the prison are necessary for the safety of the employees. He says the guards work very closely with the prisoners. Therefore, it is of great importance to them if the inmates are intoxicated or have access to dangerous objects.

– Do employees feel insecure as a result of the change?

– Yes. We have raised the concern with management, says Aksdal.

He does not know if there has been any change in the behavior of the inmates after the change occurred.

– We are concerned that employee safety comes first. So we need to get clarification on this as soon as possible, he says.

Trust the competition of prisons

Regional director Evjen is asked if he agrees that the rule change will lead to more smuggling of drugs and weapons.

– It depends on the assessments we make. For example, what the inmate has done, our knowledge of him and who he has met outside of prison are taken into account.

– Won’t the risk be greater when the discretion of the prison is introduced?

– I cannot say for sure, but prisons have very good experience with these evaluations. I trust your experience. The risk is also reduced because there are now fewer employees considering the need for nude visits, says Evjen.