Kirkjufell

• It is even harder if you’re a foreign national.
• Foreign offenders make up a significant proportion of prison populations across western Europe.
• I wanted to understand these institutions from the inside, to see what Iceland is doing differently.

Humane settings

• But in this small world of prisons, it seems that arrangements are possible that we do not often see elsewhere.
• There are two closed – Hólmsheiði, on the outskirts of Reykjavik and the largest, Litla-Hraun, just outside Eyrarbakki, on the south coast – and two open prisons.
• Sogn is found on the southern plains, where horse riding is popular.
• Kvíabryggja, in the remote west of the country, sits right next to Kirkjufell, an iconic mountain that featured in Game of Thrones.
• These are the kind of settings where you would expect a lush hotel, not a prison.

Being imprisoned on a foreign land

• So too Werner, also from western Europe, who felt let down by the system, by his defence lawyer and by the country as a whole.
• Some prisoners I spoke with have taken advantage of these benign conditions to carve out a senior role for themselves.
• While the foreign prisoners I met in Iceland cope to different degrees, they are not suffering the same multiple disadvantages of isolation and deprivation as their counterparts in other western countries.
• While the pains of imprisonment that Warr discusses are certainly still felt, people’s status as foreign nationals does not exacerbate those pains.
• In the interest of fairness and equity, that is an important achievement of Iceland’s open prisons.

Francis Pakes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.