Prisons: Living Out

Prison reform must have gone further in Sweden than anywhere else in the world. Recently, in a small, unnamed community, a 30-year-old man moved into a four-room house with his fiancée (they plan to marry soon). Dressed in civilian clothes and holding down a full-time job, he seems like anyone else; his neighbors do not know he is serving the last two years of a five-year felony prison sentence. The live-out prisoner checks in regularly—and clandestinely—with a prison official, but otherwise lives a free life.

By this week two other convicts and their wives will have moved quietly into the neighborhood; another couple is due before Christmas. Unlike parolees, the live-out prisoners have their rent subsidized by the state, the goal being to ease the transition to civilian life for cons with good records. It is the pet project of Swedish Prisons General Director Torsten Eriksson, who so far has every reason to expect success. This summer he sent ten prisoners off for three weeks of fishing, swimming and hiking in a small mountain resort. Everyone liked that so much that there was not one attempt to escape.