There’s a shortage of prison staff in Norway and a recent wave of violence isn’t likely to help recruitment efforts. Another attack on guards at the main prison in Oslo last week left two employees injured, one of them seriously.
Newspaper Dagsavisen reported that the three inmates involved are aged 18 to 30 and serving prison terms for assault, threats, vandalism, drug dealing and illegal possession of weapons. “We worry all the time that our employess can get hurt on the job,” the leader of Oslo Fengsel, Nils Leyell Finstad, told Dagsavisen.
He’s not alone: The main prison in Bergen also reported an attack on staff just before the Easter holidays that sent five employees to a local emergency room. “This has become a steadily bigger problem in recent years,” Finstad said, adding that prison staff is often the target of violence, threats or being spit on.
The prisons also face what they call an “extreme lack” of employees, and have resorted to advertising for new colleagues before films roll at Oslo cinemas. “We’re trying to lift this problem up to the political level, we have to put safety first,” Asle Aase, leader of a prison employees organization, told Dagsavisen.
NewsinEnglish.no staff