The little butterfly shreds to freedom.
Norway’s Bastoy Prison is widely considered the world’s most lovely place to be locked up (amongst connoisseurs of such things).
It’s an island one square mile in size. It’s got no fences, no cells. There’s tennis courts, beaches, saunas, the works. According to Time, it’s Scandinavia’s line in the sand as far as treating all humans, well, humanely. rapists, murderers, drug czars—they’re all there, basking in the sun, debating: sauna now, tennis later? Or tennis now, sauna later?
And yesterday an inmate—a “sex offender in his 20s”—grew tired of doubles games and beach bronzing, and set out from the island via surfboard and plastic shovel, paddling the two miles to shore before disappearing.
Obviously, with Bastoy being so posh, escape attempts are super rare. Not just because it’s so nice, but because if you try and escape and get caught, well, you ain’t coming back to the beach. Escappees are instead sent to the more standard correctional facilities.
Time’s report claims the prison’s response to escapes is particularly precious:
“When inmates come to his island jail, [Arne Kvernvik] Nilsen, the governor, gives them a little talk.
Among the wisdom he imparts is this: If you should escape and make it across the water to the free shore, find a phone and call so I know you’re OK and ‘so we don’t have to send the coast guard looking for you.’”
As of this writing, the inmate is still at large. And he hasn’t called.