I then walked in (yes, the doors were open) and said hello. I could simply drive up to the small, mostly single-storey building and park up. There is, however, a sign instructing passers by to keep out – mainly aimed at tourists.

The first prison I stayed in, Kvíabryggja prison in the west of the country, had little in the way of perimeter security. The absence of security features was striking. Iceland’s open prisons are simply very open. How do prisons without walls or fences even work? While I knew that they were calm and safe, they do house people convicted of some serious violent or sexual offences. I was going to experience both prisons from the inside. They promised to keep a room free for me. I got the impression that they quite liked the idea: a foreign academic who wanted to get under the skin of these places by assuming the role of a prisoner. When I asked the prison authorities in Iceland if I could spend a week in each of the two open prisons they were surprisingly receptive. I had visited them both before, and they left me intrigued. There are only five, altogether housing fewer than 200 prisoners. It has a population of only about 340,000 people. Iceland is a small country tucked away on the edge of Europe.

Ck2 get out of prison