Norwegian delegation visits five Pennsylvania prisons

From Norway, Pennsylvania’s prisons appear cruel and unusual

As metal gates swung open and then shut behind him, Are Høidal, the warden of Norway’s Halden prison, peered down the long, echoing main corridor of the State Correctional Institution-Chester, a medium-security prison a half-hour outside Philadelphia. Coming from what has been called the world’s most humane prison, Høidal said practices here in Pennsylvania can at times seem unaccountably harsh.