the washington post reported in 2015 that while the united states has five percent of the world's
population it has 22 percent of the reported prison population between 0.7 and 1 of all
americans are incarcerated at any given time thus for many americans the harsh realities of prison
life are directly or indirectly a significant factor in their lives but what's it like elsewhere
how different is the plight of an inmate overseas or elsewhere on the american continent where would
a prisoner have it best where would it likely be worse where are policies in place that would be
unthinkable anywhere else well it's time for a worldwide inspection to figure things out
number 10 china's humanizing and dehumanizing guards prisons in the
people's republic of china are notorious for their harsh treatments of inmates and
they generally work in arduous conditions but there are many reported attempts at prison reform
one of the most interesting came out in 2019 when sixthtone.com reported that shanghai's nan huay
prison was experimenting with having its guards offer counselling services to inmates
there's a particular emphasis on having prisoners vocalize their mental health problems to the
guards although only for the more extreme cases instead of for the general population
one chen fulin said that he offered counseling to the four to six most troubled prisoners out
of the 10-12 under his watch at any time if increasing the psychological toll of people
already performing a difficult job and having people open themselves up emotionally to
many people they would describe as their natural enemies seems problematic it's perhaps
unsurprising that chinese prison guards have been forthcoming with their work issues in 2020 a new
sixth tone article reported that 300-hour months so increasingly common security cameras actually
made this worse for many guards as many themselves will be checked on security cameras instead of
being able to take short breaks although they do answer the age or question of who watches the
watches to deal with these strains there are experiments that promise to lighten the load
while threatening to take away the human element in 2019 even as nan hoy was experimenting with
more humane guards yan cheng prison installed artificial intelligence monitors in literally
every cell block to look for unusual behavior and monitor the general health of prisoners
it also cut down on the risk of bribery which was a particular problem as inmates there tended
to be more affluent such is the duality of the world's largest police state 9. brazil's overtly
prejudicial system it's common criticism of penal systems around the world that they are harsher
on minorities for example in the u.s no one will be surprised to learn that latinos are 1.3 times
more likely to be incarcerated than caucasians and african-americans are about five times more likely
though these rates have been declining in recent years yet brazil takes this to a level where it's
written law at least as far as education is concerned as reported by the christian science
monitor in august 2020 brazilian law explicitly states that people who have been arrested and are
awaiting trial that have college degrees are to be put in private cells they're even required to
be put under house arrest that might not sound as great but considering the violent gang presence in
general populations for brazilian jails which in many cases are so overcrowded that they are kept
at literally double their design capacity can literally be a matter of life or death
number eight television-friendly norwegian prisons prison cells with television sounds like something
out of a low-key science fiction story or how a social critic would describe our modern homes for
norwegian inmates it's likely reality at least to those sent to the holden maximum security facility
built in 2010 inmates permitted a flat screen in their cells on the condition that they provided
themselves they're also allowed private showers but presumably they don't have to bring their own
towel if that seems like it's going infuriatingly soft on prisoners it's still in keeping with
holden's general policy and the broader norwegian government position regarding incarceration this
is a country where the maximum prison length is 21 years and the design for this particular
prison includes covering the concrete outer wall and greenery perhaps it's not the harshness some
desire in the repayment of debts to society but it has lowered the recidivism rate and the number of
heights in halden is unusually low indeed considering that inmates in halden are ten times
more likely to commit suicide in prison than the general population compared to eight times higher
in america halden inmates present a much higher tangent to themselves than they do to each other
we'll return to the subject of prison suicide later in this video number 7. the world's escape
capital we at this channel have long appreciated a good story of prison escape looks like our best
bet for more stories is finland while in america in 2013 there were 10.5 escapes per 10 000
prisoners in finland it's roughly 45 per 10 000. the reason finland's prisoners escape so often
relative to america is largely because finland has moved to a new and staggering degree of leniency
nearly one-third of finnish prisoners are in open prison which essentially translates to people who
are living free but are required to perform considerable community service at minimum wage
rates while either paying rent or studying under a curriculum under conditions where supervision can
often only be a real factor of life during trips outside the community escape is so easy that no
doubt at least a few prisoners have accidentally escaped reportedly the only reason the many
more don't do it is because they feel they'd have a lower quality of life while on the lam
number 6. france's suicide problem we mentioned that the suicide rate among norwegian prisoners
was unusually high but it's far from the highest in the world indeed in 2013 it was reported that
france's prisoners killed themselves at twice the rate prisoners did on average in other european
countries in 2017 it reached level where 12.6 per 10 000 french inmates committed suicide
while in prison there are a number of factors this had been attributed to for one france has
the second longest average length of incarceration in europe that number one is azerbaijan with 31.1
months france also has consistently been in the top three for european countries with the largest
amount of overcrowding in addition to these contributing factors france in general has
a much higher suicide rate than average just under those of finland belgium and eastern
european nations while france is not the worst in any one of these regards it seems to be the
confluence that is taking such a toll on its inmates number five constantly closing in the
netherlands even with such a grim subject matter as prison all is not bleak in the netherlands the
rate of incarceration has been trending downward sharply between 2008 and 2018 the number of annual
prison sentences dropped from 42 000 to 31 000 between 2014 and 2019 23 dutch prisons were closed
so severe was the lack of demand for prisons that the nation began importing prisoners from belgium
and norway that said a prison shortage feels like it should be entry number one on the list
of 10 problems that countries want to have as with the other entries in this particular video it's
due to a number of factors for one dutch prison sentences are so light that roughly 50 of inmates
are only sentenced for one month for comparison the federal bureau of prisons reports that 59.2
percent of u.s inmates are sentenced to three to 15 years for another dutch courts moved to
faber fines over prison sentences additionally there has been a massive shift to mental health
and psychiatric treatments over punitive measures in recent years there are definitely critics
of the program such as in 2019 when the guardian reported the dutch police union claimed that there
was an under-reporting of crime before bolivia's tourist prison there are plenty of people that
will compare visiting a zoo to touring in prison for fun but apparently there are those that will
take the next step in making that metaphor a literalism in 1996 it was reported that the prison
community of san pedro located in the city of la paz was allowing tourists in to see these sites or
even party with the inmates for years this was an open secret so open in fact that the lid was blown
open in 2019 when a bolivian local television production covering an incarcerated politician
uncovered the flow of tourists accidentally if you're wondering how a prison could possibly
appeal to a tourist it's in large part because san pedro isn't a conventional collection of cells
as it is a ghetto or rather a city block that got walled off it's an unusually stratified prisoners
inmates are required to pay for their own quarters which practically required the prison to charge
different rates for different detention areas some of which are practically penthouses with san pedro
effectively making a giant joke of the bolivian legal system there were numerous calls to close
the corrupt institution down to date they've all failed and saint pedro still posts its opening
and closing hours on google number three zambia's extreme overcrowding while economic conditions in
africa have been improving in recent years such as the fact that in 2018 roughly 35 percent of
the continent's roughly 1 billion people reached middle-class lifestyles and in nations such as
kenya 60 percent of people had regular access to the internet it will be a long time before
the continent is no longer associated with famine civil wars refugees and general hardship naturally
convicts are among the most vulnerable people in its nations those incarcerated in zambia gained
particular scrutiny after vice president guy scott went on a well-publicized inspection in 2012. guys
got found that while the nation's 53 prisons have been intended to house roughly 5 000 prisoners and
considering that they were leftovers from when zambia was a british colony it could
be considered a given that the facilities were not state of the art even when they were built
that more than 17 000 prisoners were housed in them some cells were designed for one person
and hold as many as 15. it was the ideal situation for outbreaks of tuberculosis typhus and diseases
of that nature as if that wasn't bad enough by 2018 the number of prisoners had risen to 21 000
while the number of prisons has increased to 90 many of them were open-air prisons where
inmates were left more vulnerable to the elements number two japanese communication restrictions
compared to zambian prisons japanese prisons which at times such as 1994 were only at 70
capacity might seem like paradises still there are a number of more psychological tortuous practices
therein the most striking is that prisoners are only allowed to talk to each other for about three
hours a day during designated break and exercise periods also all communication including all
material read television or other media consumed must be done exclusively in japanese if that seems
like immigrants who don't speak japanese are being targeted for discrimination the prison
system has actually been unusually accommodating in a sense many prisons have separate cells that
are specifically designed to more closely resemble western prison cells to segregate
prisoners surely the least pleasant way for someone to feel like it's just a home this can be
a double-edged sword as many foreign inmates are effectively put into default solitary confinement
1. mexican prisons escape leniency it turns out that one of the most bewildering practices
in a foreign prison from an american perspective is practically next door as reported by time
magazine in 2015 if a prisoner escapes from mexican prisons without committing violence
against any of the guards or others or if no prison personnel aiding the escape
there will be no extension to their sentence or other official punishment the logic behind this
was written in a mexican supreme court ruling by victor castro and as the desire for basic
freedom is implicit in every person there are similar laws in belgium germany the netherlands
and australia not the mexican prisons are any sort of kumbaya attempted utopia there are many
instances where guards can shoot escapees to kill best that any inmate who needs to escape
a prison feels like it's in their best interest to be as non-violent in the process as possible