Going to prison must be one of the scariest things in the world. And then when you actually get there, it’s probably about 1000 times worse, especially if you’re over in America. We’ve all seen the movies and TV shows.

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However, it’s not like that everywhere and Halden Prison in Norway seems to be the polar opposite of that. The staff are friendly and treat new inmates with respect and try to be as welcoming and humane as possible, as you’ll see in the video below:

Wow. That was more like he was going on holiday or starting a new job rather than going to prison. I thought it was going to get a bit gross when he put on those plastic gloves and asked him to take off his clothes, but even that bit wasn’t too bad. Looked like a positively enjoyable experience basically, aside from the fact he was going to prison of course.

I’m sure there’s an argument out there that you shouldn’t be this nice to people who have broken the law, but the one thing that’s a real shame in this video is that there aren’t any stats at the end about how successful Norway’s prison system actually is – only 75 people are incarcerated per 100,000 and the rate of recidivism is just 20%, which is one of the lowest in the world. When you see that the US has a 76.6% rate of recidivism and 707 people per 100,000 are incarcerated, it kind of puts it all into perspective.

Talking of the US, if you want to know how scary their prison system is, check out this new reality show that actually sends innocent people to prison over there. Not sure why you would sign up for that, sure looks entertaining though.