An inmate convicted of murder sunbathes outside the wooden cottage where he lives at Bastoy Prison, Norway's only island prison
The former lighthouse, now used by prison workers as a holiday retreat. The inmates of Bastoy are no small-time villains on their first custodial sentence
The prison library. With 120 inmates and 70 staff (35 of whom are guards) Bastoy is Norway's largest low-security prison but it is one of four others dotted around the country
Outdoor phone booths, which are used by the prisoners
A sunbed for inmates
“This is exactly the type of dramatic turnabout — enraged killer to gentle-giant midwife. . . “
Here is a fundamental error.
They think because this inmate has happily and tearfully helped to deliver a calf, he is “healed.”
He is probably not healed. He strangled his girlfriend in a drunken rage. He crossed a line few men would cross. It is doubtful he would not, in similar circumstances, cross it again.
Men who have murdered their spouses or children will sit and cry because they miss them. It almost never matters. They are still people who will not control their rage.
Something will make them mad again. If nothing’s making them angry in prison, well, that’s nice, but something is going to anger them eventually.
It is possible to truly repent of murder. But that is an inward and unproveable work in the heart.
