The most interesting thing about Scandinavian prisons? Many are barely prisons at all.

Our research team spent six weeks conducting intensive research in Danish prisons. We were struck by the sight of prisoners wearing their own clothes, cooking their own meals and having private family visits as often as once a week. At these “open” prisons, there are no barbed wire fences, solid walls with gun towers or secure perimeters. Instead, prison officials allow for the possibility that a prisoner might escape. Better that than a prisoner take a staff member hostage trying to breach a secure perimeter, they explain. Read more.