The State Prison in Vridsløselille is a prison located in Albertslund in the suburbs of Copenhagen in Denmark.
The prison is used for the enforcement of imprisonment and execution of arrests and has a total of 241 inmates. The State Prison in Vridsløselille only receives men over age of 23 years from across Zealand to be placed in a closed prison facility. There are no female inmates at The State Prison in Vridsløselille. The prison is scheduled for closure by the end of 2017, when a new prison on Falster will take its place.
The Olsen Gang
The State Prison in Vridsløselille is known through Erik Balling’s movies about the Olsen Gang (Danish: Olsen Banden). Almost all the movies begin and end in front of the prison’s main entrance.
When the actor behind the series’ protagonist, Ove Sprogøe, died in September 2004 people began talking about whether the road then named Fængselsvej (Prison Road) between Roskildevej and the prison should be renamed after Ove Sprogøe’s famous character from the movies, Egon Olsen. After some debate back and forth the name was changed to Egon Olsen Road (Danish: Egon Olsens Vej) by the Municipality of Albertslund. On 21 December 2004 the name was officially put in use by the public.
Prison escapes
In the night of 12 to 13 December the 40-year-old Danish Brian Bo Larsen escaped from the prison, making it his 20th prison escape. He fled through the window, after having sawed the bars. After reaching the roof of the prison by climbing a rope from his window, he used a second rope to leave the confines of the prison.
Prisoner Escape From Vridsløselille State Prison in Denmark With A Wheel Loader
There are several stories of Danes running from jail but are never caught. Instead they give them self up at a police station asking to serve their time. The reason for this lax Danish behavior is a matter of cost, (prisons you can not escape from are expensive or not acceptable for human rights activists), and there is also a psychological aspect. The prisoner knows why he is in jail, and by serving his or her time they accept the punishment. The rehabilitation and recidivism rate is also at play (the first one is higher and the second one lower when compared to the vast majority of the world). Lastly most of the jails in Denmark are open facilities where inmates are only in lock-up at night. They can go to the dentist, visit doctors, go to the library, vote at political election, keep a job, exercise, look for a job, take an education …. The possibilities are there. The system is mostly there to make you a part of society again and you can get a lot of freedom under responsibility here.
The bad side is Denmark has the European record for most prisons escapes. 35.8 out of 10000 citizens in 2014. That is 183 inmates deciding to leave prison without permission.
Permission is granted often for those that ask. In 2015 prisoners left the facilities 52761 time. 36% for work or education. 24% for visit to family. 20% for medical visits. 86% of the leaves were given to some one serving time in an open limited security prison.
2.1% of the times the return time was not respected. In 0.1% of the times the police raised charges for new crime committed while on leave from jail. Årlige statistikberetninger (crime statistics, only in Danish).
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