{"id":996,"date":"2021-07-05T23:08:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T03:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/in-print\/volume-58-number-4-fall-2021\/ice-in-the-stomach-reforming-prisons-at-home-and-abroad\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:09:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:09:30","slug":"ice-in-the-stomach-reforming-prisons-at-home-and-abroad","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/in-print\/volume-58-number-4-fall-2021\/ice-in-the-stomach-reforming-prisons-at-home-and-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"“Ice in the Stomach”: Reforming Prisons at Home and Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Correctional culture is notoriously difficult to change.\u00a0Simply recognizing that there is a problem and wishing for better prisons is not enough to engender meaningful reform. It takes hard work, dedication, and continuous support from multiple stakehold-ers. At its core, however, improving carceral systems requires a team of people dedi-cated to change. The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America\u2019s Prisons put it this way: \u201cEfforts at culture change cannot succeed and bear fruit . . . without recruiting and retaining a highly qualified officer corps and great corrections leaders.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those people exist. Several of them are engaged in an important experiment attempting to make positive change a reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2020, the American Criminal Law Review <\/i>partnered with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to host a multi-day Symposium entitled Prison Brake: Rethinking the Sentencing Status Quo<\/i>. The Symposium\u2019s initial two panels highlighted the work of the Scandinavian Prison Project (\u201cSPP\u201d), which examines whether variations on Scandinavian penal values and practices can work in Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The SPP is a collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (\u201cPADOC\u201d), particularly a group of staff from the State Correctional Institution (\u201cSCI\u201d) at Chester, and the correctional services in Scandinavia\u2014that is, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. As part of the SPP, a delegation from the PADOC spent sev-eral weeks during the summer of 2019 in Scandinavia learning about local practices. Furthermore, Pennsylvania correctional officers worked in Norwegian prisons side-by- side with their Norwegian counterparts. The idea was to determine what could be trans-planted back to the United States successfully. Upon returning home, the PADOC par-ticipants began to craft a plan to adapt and implement select Scandinavian principles and practices in a single revamped residential housing unit at SCI Chester.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Symposium\u2019s first panel, Rethinking Prisons: Lessons from Scandinavia<\/i>, described the project and featured Professors Steven L. Chanenson, Syn\u00f8ve N. Andersen, and Jordan M. Hyatt, who are part of a team of academics affiliated with the SPP. An Article based on that presentation appears elsewhere in this Issue. The Symposium\u2019s second panel, Rethinking Prisons: Implementing Reform at Home and Abroad<\/i>, revolved around the experiences of three correctional professionals: Governor Are H\u00f8idal from Norway\u2019s Halden Prison, and Superintendent Kenneth Eason and Unit Manager Patricia Connor-Council, both from Pennsylvania\u2019s SCI Chester. Professors Andersen and Hyatt served as moderators. An edited, condensed, and clarified Transcript\u00a0follows with occasional commentary in italics <\/i>from Professors Chanenson, Andersen, and Hyatt.<\/p>\n

Read the Transcript Here<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Correctional culture is notoriously difficult to change.\u00a0Simply recognizing that there is a problem and wishing for better prisons is not enough to engender meaningful reform. It takes hard work, dedication, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4766,"featured_media":0,"parent":942,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-996","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/996\/revisions\/999"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}