The Menendez brothers built a green space in the prison. It is modeled on this Norwegian idea

COPENHAGEN – Almost 30 years after the murder of my parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez launched a beautification project in California prison where they are serving life sentences.

Their design was inspired by the Norwegian approach to incarceration, which believes that rehabilitation is humane prison being surrounded by nature leads to successful reintegration into society, even for those who have committed terrible crimes.

Norway is a long, narrow country in northern Europe, stretching 1,750 kilometers from north to south. Small prisons have been set up across the country so people can serve their sentences close to home, said Kristian Mjåland, a Norwegian professor of sociology at the University of Agder in Kristiansand.

He said there are about 3,000 people in prison nationwide, meaning Norway’s per capita incarceration rate is about one-tenth the rate in the United States.

Norway has one of the lowest levels of recidivism in the world. Government statistics show that in 2020 the proportion of people re-convicted within two years of release will be 16%, with this figure decreasing year on year. Meanwhile, A US Department of Justice study conducted over a ten-year period found that 66% of people released from state prisons in 24 states were rearrested within three years, and most of them were returned to prison.

Mjåland said the Norwegian prison system is based on the principles that people should be “treated decently by well-trained and decent staff” and have “the opportunity to engage in meaningful activities during the day” – which he called the “principle of normality” – and that they should they should maintain their fundamental rights.

Mjåland, whose research focused on punishment and prisons, found that prisoners in Norway, for example, retain the right to vote and access to services such as libraries, health care and education provided by the same providers operating in the wider community.

There are also open prisons in Norway, some on islands where there is a lot of farm work and contact with nature. The most famous is on the island of Bastoey, “which is very beautifully situated in the Oslo fjord,” Mjåland said.

Even Anders Behring Breivik — which killed eight people in a 2011 bombing of a government building in Oslo and then gunned down 69 more at a holiday camp for young left-wing activists — has a dining room, a fitness room and a TV room with an Xbox. A poster of the Eiffel Tower adorns the wall of his cell, and parrots share his space.

The idea of ​​creating normal, humane conditions for people in prison is also starting to spread in the USA.

For example, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has attempted to apply some elements of the Nordic approach in recent years and presented the program calls “Little Scandinavia” in Chester Prison in 2022

The Menendez brothers’ case returned to the public spotlight Thursday as Los Angeles County – ordered the district attorney that their life sentences without the possibility of parole be thrown out. Prosecutors hope the judge will punish them so that they can apply for parole.

If the judge agrees, the parole board must then approve their release. The final decision rests with the Governor of California.

Their lawyer and the Los Angeles district attorney argued that they had served enough time, citing evidence that they suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their father, an entertainment executive. They also say the brothers, now in their 50s, are exemplary prisoners who have committed themselves to rehabilitation and redemption.

Both point to the brothers’ years of efforts to improve the San Diego prison where they lived for six years. Previously, since 1996, they were both imprisoned in separate prisons.

In 2018 Lyle Menendez launched the Green Space beautification program at the Prison. Richard J. Donovan. His brother, Erik Menendez, is the lead painter of a huge mural depicting San Diego landmarks.

“This project aims to normalize the environment inside the prison to reflect the living environment outside the prison,” Pedro Calderón Michel, deputy press secretary for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told the AP in an email Friday.

The Menendez brothers’ work continues, with the ultimate goal of transforming the prison yard “from an oppressive slab of concrete and gravel to a standardized park-like campus surrounded by a majestic landscape mural,” they say. project website.

The final product will include outdoor classrooms, meeting rooms for rehabilitation groups and training areas for assistance dogs.

The prison system recently launched the “California Model” in hopes of rolling out similar projects across the state to build “safer communities through rehabilitation, education and re-entry,” Calderón Michel wrote.

The brothers’ lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he believed Lyle Menendez met the Norwegian model during university classes. Lyle Menendez is currently a master’s student studying urban planning and recidivism, and Geragos said his client hopes the beautification will make re-introduction to society easier for parolees.

“When you find yourself in a gray space that’s not very welcoming, it can be somewhat disorienting,” Geragos told The Associated Press on Friday. “And then there’s the problem that the area is not welcoming or helpful in the process of acclimating and re-acclimating to the community.”

Dominique Moran, a professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK, stated that in her research she found that introducing green areas in prisons improved the well-being of prisoners and prison staff.

“Green spaces in prisons reduce the risk of self-harm and violence, and also reduce staff illness,” said Moran, author of “Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration.”

Moran examined prisons around the world and in an emailed statement said that under the Scandinavian approach, “people go to prison AS punishment, not FOR further punishment.”

“Deprivation of liberty is itself a punishment,” she said. “There should be no further punishment due to the nature of the environment in which people are held.”

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Gera reported from Warsaw and Dazio from Los Angeles. David Keyton contributed from Berlin.