INSIDE FINLAND'S SMART PRISON

A man serving a life sentence for murder takes a dip in an ice pool, then goes to his dormitory to shower before driving off to college in his own car.

It sure doesn’t sound like a prison sentence to us, but in Finland it is. Well, if you’re lucky enough to be in one of the country’s newest prisons.

The Scandinavian country is trying out what they call smart prisons. Instead of locking up offenders, they are rehabilitated by letting them live a somewhat normal life within society. To be honest, to us it sounds more like free boarding and food at a dodgy address you probably won’t reveal on your first date.

Business Insider took us on a tour of what it’s like to live in one of these smart prisons and, to us, it seems not bad at all.

With Finland recently being voted the happiest and safest country in the world, there might be some truth to this system.

Research done by the Business Insider guys shows that only one in three Finish inmates return to prison. The other two are able to ease back into society thanks to the system allowing them to do so.

New stats have shown that there are less than 3,000 inmates currently in the prison system in Finland. Not bad for a country with almost six million people.

Of course, not all Finish prisons are as easy-going as smart prisons. In one prison, where inmates are held in cells, they can at least make use of VR to escape the boring everyday life behind bars. Again, it doesn’t seem bad at all.

Watch the Business Insider below to see what it’s like at one of Finland’s smart prisons.

Image credit: Wired UK