How Norway's Prisons Are Different From America's

NORWAY'S PRISON SYSTEM: ‘The most important thing is how we treat people’ — Norway has developed a prison system that looks a bit different from that in the U.S., which has the world’s largest incarcerated population.

6x9: a virtual experience of solitary confinement – 360 video

What’s it like to spend 23 hours a day in a cell measuring 6x9 feet for days, weeks, months or even years? 6x9 is the Guardian's first virtual reality experience, which places you inside a US solitary confinement prison cell and tells the story of the psychological damage that can ensue from isolation.

We've created a mobile app allowing you to fully experience VR on your own, with or without cardboard viewer. If you don't have a smartphone scroll down to watch the 360° video.

US: Lost in the System (video)

Fault Lines investigates the practice of pretrial detention and how American courts are failing the poor.
Speedy justice and the right-to-counsel are the backbone of the US criminal justice system. But a majority of the men and women locked up in America's 3,000 jails are there before even having a trial.

Many are locked up only because they are too poor to afford bail. They are legally innocent, but find themselves waiting for their day in court behind bars.


In the meantime, they are separated from their families, may lose their jobs or their homes, experience the trauma of incarceration, incur debts, and may plead guilty - even when innocent - just to get out of jail.

"I have things about me that jail helped form. You get mental scars from this... they never leave you alone," says Donovan Drayton, a former Rikers Island inmate.