By Anders Lindskov (anli@dpu.dk)

The second-largest city in Denmark, Århus, has one unique offer to young people who are looking for a place to stay: They can opt to live with criminals who have recently been released from prison. Not only that, but the criminals are not even done serving time for their crimes, and have sentences that often run for years.

The basic premise of Pension Skejby, as the experimental institution is called, is 'normalisation'. This means that life for a criminal doing time must resemble 'normal life' as much as possible. In order to achieve that, the criminals live alongside ordinary citizens while they serve their sentence. The aim is to re-socialise the criminals. Which, in plain English, means that once they are done serving time, the criminals will abstain from further criminal behaviour.

The results are better than those of other so-called 'pensions' where Danish criminals can serve the last part of a prison sentence. Statistics say that half the Skejby-inmates will revert to criminal behaviour (including misdemeanours), whereas inmates from other institutions show a probability of 61 pct. of reverting to criminal behaviour. The figures are based on the criminals' behaviour in the first two years following release. If we only look at those who receive a new jail sentence, Skejby inmates show a 29 pct. risk of returning to crime. Others have a 39 pct. likelihood of getting a new jail sentence.

Nothing works?
Pension Skejby seems very successful now, but the odds seemed heavily stacked against the institution from the start. The pension was founded in 1973, at a time when the bulk of the researcher community was turning their collective backs to the whole concept of re-socialisation.

In 1975, three American researchers published a report 'The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment' after nearly a decade of work. The report was the result of a meta-survey collecting a staggering 231 evaluations of the effects of imprisonment, some dating all the way back to 1945. The researchers evaluated the effects of imprisonment in terms of the risk of relapse, i.e. the chance that a given person will commit new crime after he or she has served a sentence. The conclusion was, in so many words, that: Nothing works.

The findings led to a massive change in the prison system in the United States. From an ideology based on the notion of 'curing' people of their criminal behaviour, prisons were now reduced to a means to keep the criminals off the streets. The report had repercussions in Europe as well, among other things in the form of reallocation of resources away from treatment of inmates to erection of more prisons.

In the mid-1980s, however, the pendulum began to swing the other way. New surveys challenged the findings of the 1975-report, and 'Nothing works' gradually became 'Something works'. Eventually the notion of treatment and cure gained a new foothold, although the aspirations for the criminals were less ambitious than earlier on. A restrained and realistic optimism began to dominate.

Learning and unlearning in prison
Among the 'new realists' we find two researchers; Charlotte Mathiassen and Linda Kjær Minke. Charlotte Mathiassen is an assistant professor at the Department of Educational Psychology at the Danish University of Education. Her previous work experience includes working as a psychologist in a Danish prison (Herstedvester), and researching into inmates' lives before, during and after their imprisonment, as well as into the relation between officers and inmates in Norway and Denmark. Linda Kjær Minke is writing her PhD-thesis about life in the prison at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen, and has recently completed a research project on the reintroduction into society of inmates from Pension Skejby in Aarhus.

Both researchers are of the opinion that improvements in the work with inmates are possible, but they emphasise that this is a dual challenge: On the one hand the task is to help people get back on track, but at the same time a term in prison is also a bad influence in itself. "The job is to prepare the inmate for life on the outside, and preferably one that works better than the life that person had prior to turning to crime. The $64.000 question is how much we can reprogram a person to unlearn anti-social behaviour and acquire pro-social behavioural patterns instead, and how we can alleviate the (psychological) damage from being in jail? This is a very ambitious project," says Charlotte Mathiassen.

You can take the prisoner out of prison, but?
Resocialisation of criminals is no easy task, and it is not made any easier by sending people off to prison first. Classic American surveys from the 1940s and 1950s found that prisons were in fact breeding grounds for hard-core criminals, and there is little reason to think this has changed since.

According to Danish Prison Service statistics from 2004, 39.2 pct. of inmates get a new sentence within two years following their release from prison. "In prisons, the only people you can socialise with are criminals. And what do they have in common? Crime, of course. However you want to look at it, crime is their common frame of reference. If you were a light-weight criminal when you got sent to prison, odds are you will have picked up quite a few tricks when you come back out. This is a prime example of social learning," says Linda Kjær Minke.

The problem is not just that inmates learn from each other. They also unlearn a series of basic practical and social skills, skills that are superfluous in the confines of a prison where every day is strictly organised. "You have prisoners who actively unlearn skills they once had, absolutely fundamental skills such as buying groceries, making sure you have toilet paper and soap and making sure you stay in touch with your case worker," Charlotte Mathiassen says.

Normalisation
Normalisation is an attempt to avoid this unlearning. The aim is that life in prison should resemble life outside as much as possible. Among the widespread methods in Danish prisons are such measures as having the inmates go to work or attend teaching every day, and that they have a certain amount of autonomy – and responsibility – in that they have a little money and have to purchase regular household items. Nevertheless, serving time in prison leaves a mark on people.

"Life is just rolling by, you don't have a lot of things to worry about, you just have to keep up with the particular rhythm of a day in prison and do as you are told. It can be a tremendous challenge to break free from a certain lethargy when everything always happen according to the same pattern," says Linda Kjær Minke.

She explains that you adopt a certain behaviour that stays with you even after you are released. Sometimes, when a former prison inmate finds a closed door, he or she will just stand there, waiting for someone to unlock it – even when it is merely closed. Life in the prison takes root in the prisoners, you wait for people to let you through, you adapt to doors always being locked against you, as Linda Kjær Minke explains.

Serving time in real life
One of the primary aims for Pension Skejby is to prevent this unlearning from taking place by having the criminals live side by side with regular law-abiding citizens, typically students. Linda Kjær Minke has never heard about anything quite like this since she began to study this Pension where the concept of normality is taken to its logical extreme. "The fundamental assumption at Skejby is that the system does not influence people, but peers do. You and me, we can influence each other, but a pedagogue or a prison officer laying it on is just so much noise," Linda Kjær Minke explains.

Even though Pension Skejby has been in existence since 1973, Linda Kjær Minke is the first one to conduct a systematic study of the Pension's effects on its residents. She has examined how people fare after being released from Skejby and compared it to inmates from other of the Prison Service's pensions. The results indicate a positive effect: Skejby inmates are less likely to revert to criminal behaviour than inmates from other pensions.

The likelihood of a reversion to crime is subject to influence from a number of factors, including the age of the prisoner and the type of crime he or she has committed. Therefore, Linda Kjær Minke had to apply a complex statistical method to adjust for gender, age, educational level and prior sentences. Once more, Skejby came out ahead, in that the likelihood of reversion is a significant 21 pct. lower among former Skejby inmates than among inmates from other pensions.

Monkey see, monkey do
So, what makes Skejby so different? Transfer of positive norms, according to Linda Kjær Minke. Skejby Pension was designed following a survey among the Danish armed forces in 1970. This survey found that transfer of positive norms worked best among people of the same age, and that the organisation would operate most efficiently when problematic groups were 'diluted' with well-functioning people.

Transfer of positive norms includes more than merely law-abiding behaviour; it turns out that the desire to enrol in an education is also stimulated. Within the first two years following release, Skejby inmates are twice as likely as inmates from other pensions to improve on their education after serving a sentence. "No doubt this is because many of the non-criminals at Skejby are students, who can help inmates find their way around the educational system. You have someone with whom you can share your experiences: how hard it is to understand the subjects at school, and how hard it is to get by on student grants. The criminals get to see that they are not the only ones with problems, and that others can get a poor grade as well," says Linda Kjær Minke.

At Pension Skejby, they try to establish a sense of community among the residents by making mixed groups of criminals and non-criminals. These groups are in charge of housekeeping and have weekly meetings. The staff keeps in the background and generally leaves it to the residents to solve their conflicts on their own.

On the face of it, one would think that Skejby is a very nice place to serve time. Maybe a little too nice, considering that some of the criminals were sentenced for violent or sexual assaults. However, the inmates report that Skejby can be a much more difficult experience than serving time in a regular prison. "Criminals report that it is hard to serve time in Skejby. Although the door is open, they know they are not allowed to leave. And then there's the requirement for personal development. You are not allowed to hide. You have to take part in everything, the work and the meetings, and you have to be honest and open about the crime you did. That is very unusual," says Linda Kjær Minke.

When Pension Skejby seems so successful, one is tempted to ask why there is only one of its kind in Denmark, and not a single institution like it anywhere in the world? The answer is simple – economy. There is currently no political interest in paying the extra costs incurred by a facility where half the residents are non-criminals.

Deal with your anger
De-toxification of drug addicts, rehabilitation of drunken drivers, sexological treatment of sex-offenders and anger management courses for violent criminals. The range of offers to inmates is on the rise. Although the primary aim with a prison sentence is punishment, there is a growing realisation that giving convicted criminals something meaningful to do while they serve time reduces the risk of them turning back to crime when they leave prison. The largest increase is found in the so-called cognitive programs, which exist in a number of variations.

One of the most common of these programs is a 'cognitive competence program'. The program was developed in Canada and is applied to all types of criminals. The basic idea is that criminals will change their behaviour to a more constructive, respectful and peaceful one, allowing them to interact normally with other people. Participants normally meet four times a week. By methods such as role-playing and video-recordings, they discuss various behavioural responses in their meeting with other people; they examine how each individual reacts, and how others respond.

The programs were evaluated through so-called meta-evaluations and showed mixed results. One survey showed a drop of 12 pct. in reversion to crime, another a drop of 8 pct., while others yet show no effects at all. Summed up, the results are less than convincing, and Charlotte Mathiassen cautions against having too much faith in these programs.

"I think it is a good thing that we try to provide meaning in the inmates' everyday lives. But working with the individual and the individual's needs shifts focus away from the horribly bad social conditions that these people have experienced. There's a majority of social drop-outs in prisons, and you don't necessarily change that by changing the individual's behaviour and mind-set," says Charlotte Mathiassen. Some of the worst cases among the drug-addicts have told her that they really would like to change, they really want to go through de-toxification and to take a course in anger management. But when they finish, all they have to go back to is the street and the bench on the corner.

About Charlotte Mathiassen
Assistant professor at the Department for Educational Psychology at the Danish University of Education. Originally educated psychologist. Earned her PhD in 2005 with a thesis 'Trapped in life?' See more at her personal homepage: http://www.dpu.dk/about/cham

About Linda Kjær Minke
Is currently writing her PhD-thesis on the inner life of prisons at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen. Her most recent publication was a chapter called 'Mixing criminals and non-criminals' for the Danish anthology 'What Works' (2006). Linda's personal homepage is in Danish and is available here: www.jur.ku.dk/medarbejdere/lindakjaerminke

Charlotte Mathiassen

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Linda Kjær Minke

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Punchline

"If you were a light-weight criminal when you got sent to prison, odds are you will have picked up quite a few tricks when you come back out. This is a prime example of social learning."
-Linda Kjær Minke

The author

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