Norway’s Minister of Justice, Knut Storberget, greets Prison Manager Stig Storvik.
Norway’s Minister of Justice, Knut Storberget, chose to present his Revised National Budget from the steps of Oslo Prison’s A Wing* (*known otherwise by locals, from popular Norwegian films, as the Olsen Gang Entrance). Like the fictive film gang, Knut Storberget also has a plan!
Read the press release from Norway’s Ministry of Justice concerning the Norwegian Correctional Services:
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Press Release, 13.05.2011
Nr.: 30 - 2011:
– In order to cope with increased use of remand and increased numbers of convicted individuals we will now allocate a further 16 million kroner to the Norwegian Correctional Services. This will increase safety and security for both inmates and employees comments Knut Storberget, Minister of Justice. At the same time, the government will also expand the foot-link custodial scheme to include the counties of Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder and Akershus.
Increased manpower in the prisons. The police are solving an increased number of cases, and this has imposed a strain on the capacity of the Correctional Services. Therefore the government proposes increasing the operating budget of the Correctional Services by a further 10 million kroner to increase safety and security for both inmates and employees in its prisons. For the period 2006-2011 allocations ear-marked for the Correctional Services have been increased by more than 2 billion kroner.
More use of alternative custody strengthens overall custodial capacity. To strengthen custodial capacity and improve the nature of periods of sentencing, the government will allocate 6 million kroner for the purpose of implementing electronically controlled custody in the counties of Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder and Akershus. This will provide a capacity corresponding to 60 prison places. – The opportunity to serve sentences based on electronically-based control has so far provided good results, showing that this alternative way of serving time does provide positive results, comments Storberget.
With the inclusion of this expansion in the electronic control scheme 10 of Norway’s counties will have a capacity of 240 places. The first trial period for the scheme in Norway was established on 1. september 2008. It has since proved to be a successful arrangement in Oslo, Vestfold, Hedmark, Rogaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Troms and Hordaland.
In the period up until April 2011 more than 3900 convicted persons applied to serve their prison sentences based on use of an electronic foot-link. More than 2100 persons have already completed their sentences in this way. Only 91 persons have been transferred to prison as a result of a breach of the rules for this scheme. Norway has the lowest prison re-conviction rate according to an investigation conducted in 2010.
Increased capacity. The capacity of the Norwegian Correctional Services has increased by approximately 800 places from 2006 to 2010.
More prison custody transfers. The police have strengthened their focus on tackling organized mobile theft and robbery instances. This has led to an increased number of foreigners in Norway’s prisons. The Ministry of Justice and all involved personnel in the penal chain now co-operate to implement measures that result in increased numbers of prison custody transfers. In 2010, 41 persons were transferred for custody outside Nordic countries, and the government has signed agreements with Romania, Latvia and Lithuania.
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