When watching the Webinar Criminal (In)Justice: How Mass Incarceration Disrupts Families and Communities, it reminded me of a movie I saw about this very topic. A couple of years ago, I watched the movie Where to Invade Next, by Michael Moore, Moore detailed what he saw as superior qualities of other countries worldwide compared to the United States. In Europe, one of Moore’s most groundbreaking findings was that the criminal justice system in Norway is based on reforming convicts rather than punishing them. Due to this, the incarceration rate and recidivism rate is exceptionally lower when compared with the United States’ system.

When keeping this in perspective, while the American prison system is significantly worse than that of Norway, I do find something the webinar said very encouraging. I find that mothers being able to have their newborns in prison with them up to age three is a small, but necessary, step to trying to meet Europe’s level of rehabilitation. By doing this, you give the mothers a goal: to give their newborns a better life than they themselves had and work to make that happen. That may help incentivize them to work harder and use their time behind bars more effectively to help foster society upon release.