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At Bredtveit Women’s Prison, the occupancy rate is 71 percent.
– I have not experienced anything like it in my 30 years in prison, says Bredtveit Prison and Detention Center Director Doris Bakken.
Since August last year, the number of prisoners has decreased. There have been fluctuations in the number before, but they have never experienced having so few prisoners for so long. It is also very unusual that no one is waiting to be sent to prison.
EXTRAORDINARY: Doris Bakken at Bredtveit says she has never experienced anything like this in the 30 years she has worked in the penal care system.
Photo: Bredtveit Prison and Detention Center
– It may be that the pandemic has influenced the criminal pattern, he says.
Police in the capital have said this winter that there have been new challenges in the drug environment after the border closures. There has also been an increased use of knives.
The Oslo Women’s Prison consists of a high-security room that can hold 45 inmates. They serve long sentences of an average of seven years for serious crimes such as murder, violence and drugs. There is also an apartment with a lower security level that is a stone’s throw away. It has space for 19 inmates. But now one out of every three cells is empty.
Long prison line for men
The deputy director of the Norwegian Prison and Probation Service, Jan-Erik Sandlie, believes there is a reason for this
FEWER PLACES FOR WOMEN: Jan-Erik Sandlie of the Norwegian Prison and Probation Service says they are converting more places for women into places for men.
Photo: Ali Iqbal Tahir / NRK
the decline is closed borders.
– There are fewer foreign prisoners than we used to have and there is a reduced number of remand prisoners. They are usually in Oslo and sit in Bredtveit, he says.
He says they deliberately removed the lining of all prisons last spring to prevent the spread of the infection. On average, it has been around 84 percent.
But that doesn’t explain why there are so few women in the area..
There are currently 890 people in the prison queue, but there are no women waiting, he says.
– At this moment we have a capacity greater than what the judge and custody would indicate, says Sandlie.
– Is unusual?
– Yes, it is unusual that there are no women in line in practice. A couple of years ago, the situation was different.
Now there is a need for more places of incarceration for men. Earlier this year, they converted women’s places in Verdal prison to men’s places, and they plan to do the same in several other prisons.
– It is based both on the need for more places for men and on ending reconciliation between women and men, he says.
Less use of coercion
In recent years, there have been around 1,000 punitive reactions with unconditional imprisonment against women, according to Statistics Norway (SSB).
The number of women incarcerated at the beginning of the year has been between 200 and 300 in recent years. By comparison, there have been just over 3,500 men serving time in prison at the beginning of the year in recent years, according to Statistics Norway.
The director of the Bredtveit prison says that incarceration conditions with them have become much calmer with fewer prisoners.
– The fact that officers have time for prisoners means that the use of security cells has decreased, says Bakken.
But the prison director does not think this situation will last.
– It is clear that when the border is opened and there are more people in the community, we hope to have a greater occupation again.
LESS FORCE: The use of security cells has decreased in line with the number of inmates. In a security cell, there is only one mattress in a bare room.
Photo: Camilla H. Wernersen / NRK
