This is not a resort, this is Bastoy prison in Norway
Bastoy Prison located on an island 75 kilometers off the coast of Oslo in Norway. It became home to 115 of the country's most dangerous criminals, all of whom were convicted of crimes such as murder, rape and drug trafficking. However, these criminals while away their time on the island as if they were on vacation. The prison does not have barbed wire around the perimeter, high walls or electrified fences around the island. Also, there are no armed guards or service dogs patrolling the area.
The prisoners live in brightly painted small wooden cottages, have their own farm - farm animals and small plots of land for growing crops. They are even paid a small salary for their work - about $10 a day. 
For recreation, there is a beach where prisoners can sunbathe in the summer, there are equipped fishing spots, horses for riding, a sauna and tennis courts. For dinner, criminals are offered a large selection of dishes, such as fish balls in white sauce, shrimp soup, tagliatelle with tuna, a selection of salads and cheeses, dishes with red fish and caviar, and the like. Compare these luxurious conditions for prisoners with. 
The idea behind Bastoy Prison is to change the criminal by achieving inner peace. That is why former murderers in Bastoy prison are treated like ordinary people, providing them with comfortable living conditions and time to reflect on their sins. And this tactic of re-educating criminals works! Statistics show that only 16% of prisoners who go through Bastoy commit a new crime within the next two years. For comparison, the average in Europe is as much as 70%.
For example, in America, for some types of crimes, such as murder, a prisoner is simply shot. For this purpose, some states have
The new Hunter maximum security prison in Sydney's north looks little like a prison at all. There are no cells or doors, and prisoners can make calls late into the night or watch touch-screen TV. At the same time, they are under the watchful eye of 600 video cameras 24 hours a day, and in case of incidents, an elite rapid response team is always ready.
The prison authorities believe that this is the future of the rehabilitation system for criminals such as murderers, rapists and repeat offenders.
What may surprise those who smiled skeptically when reading this: in the first six months of operation of the Hunter Correctional Center, there was not a single attack on guards or a single skirmish between prisoners. Not a single death, escape, and only one prisoner harmed himself. And this is an excellent result compared to other maximum security institutions.
The prison's goal is to "achieve a 100 percent success rate in inmates' employment, life skills, education, and programs to correct their offending behavior."
Prisoners work five hours a day and are paid $65 a week. They also have three hours of leisure time, which includes a treadmill and other exercise equipment, a library and a multi-faith chapel.
Hunter Prison was built in just a year and opened on January 30th. The building has four wings, each with four shared bedrooms, or “blocks.” Each block accommodates 25 prisoners, who live in open, single rooms, more like an office. The rooms have a table, chair, mattress and interactive TV.
Although Hunter Correctional Center operates differently, it is still a prison.
The rapid response team is always ready.
Senior prison officer Melanie Campton watches one of the dormitories through the window before lunch.
Prisoners may store food and personal hygiene items in their room.
The 60cm interactive TV has access to free TV channels, radio and some films.
Unlike traditional prisons, inmates at Hunter Correctional Center are not behind bars.
Through these windows, guards watch the dormitories.
Prisoners are provided with toilet paper, plastic kitchen utensils and a safety razor. They can store all this in their room.
A wall of posters in the room of one of the prisoners.
The criminals lined up for roll call. Each of them, upon hearing his last name, must answer “Yes, miss” or “Yes, sir.”
Rapid response team officers will be in any part of the prison within two minutes to prevent a dangerous situation.
The guards have pepper spray and stun grenades in their arsenal. However, since the opening of the prison they have never been needed.
Personal hygiene items - baby powder, shampoo and deodorant.
Every prisoner is required to work. They can learn, for example, how to work with metal, which will be useful to them in life outside the prison walls.
Prisoners can also learn the craft of drapery. The furniture they make is used in other NSW prisons.
Hunter Correctional Facility warden Richard Haycock wants to see inmates rehabilitated and returned to society.
Prisoners have greater access to recreational facilities than other Australian maximum security prisons.
Dormitories have high ceilings and partitions that absorb sound. Surprisingly, the premises are usually very quiet, even if all the prisoners are present.
There are a total of 400 inmates at Hunter Prison. Most of their day is filled with work, school, and other programs.
The correctional facility has a multi-faith chapel.
There is even a room for washing feet.
The menu for the week hangs in the kitchen, and prisoners can choose their own dishes.
Touchball is a popular game at Hunter Prison.
The prisoners are preparing lunch. On Thursdays they have chicken tacos and salad.
10th place Among all the high-profile escapes, the Maze prison break ranks. For several decades, this case has remained one of the most notorious in the UK. On September 25, 1983, in the city of Antrim, which is located in Northern Ireland, eight people who had previously served in the Irish Republican Army were able to escape from a local prison. They were sentenced to prison for numerous murders and terrorist attacks.
9th place belongs to the story of Alfred Hinds. In Great Britain, this prisoner had considerable popularity. He received twelve years for armed robbery, but during this time he was able to organize his own escape from three prisons. However, the six years that remained were spent in Parkhurst prison, located on the Isle of Wight.
Express information on the country
The Earth is in third place in terms of distance from the Sun and in fifth place among all the planets in the Solar System in size.
Age– 4.54 billion years
Average radius – 6,378.2 km
Average circumference – 40,030.2 km
Square– 510,072 million km² (29.1% land and 70.9% water)
Number of continents– 6: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica
Number of oceans– 4: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic
Population– 7.3 billion people. (50.4% men and 49.6% women)
Most populous states: Monaco (18,678 people/km2), Singapore (7607 people/km2) and Vatican City (1914 people/km2)
Number of countries: total 252, independent 195
Number of languages in the world– about 6,000
Number of official languages– 95; the most common: English (56 countries), French (29 countries) and Arabic (24 countries)
Number of nationalities– about 2,000
Climate zones: equatorial, tropical, temperate and arctic (main) + subequatorial, subtropical and subarctic (transitional)
8th place In the category of the top 10 famous prison escapes, seven from Texas were awarded. On December 13, 2000, a group of prisoners escaped from a Texas prison. Half a million dollars were promised for the capture of dangerous criminals. The escape took place on election day. The prisoners were taken to the voting room, but using various techniques they were able to disarm the guards and leave the prison walls. Now two of them are dead, and five are awaiting death sentences.
7th place given to Alfred Wetzler's escape from a concentration camp. A Jew by nationality, Wetzler was in the German concentration camp Auschwitz. After a successful escape, in his notes he outlined a clear plan of the camp, a description of the crematoria, gas chambers, etc. The escape took place in April 1944, on the day of Passover.
Escape from Siberia to India takes 6 position. The Polish soldier Slawomir Rawicz, who was arrested in 1939, took part in this story. He went through torture and interrogation by the NKVD, but survived and was sent to construction work in camp number 303, located near the Arctic Circle. On April 9, 1941, he organized his escape. But a BBC investigation in 2006 revealed that Ravich's escape was more of a hoax.
Escape from Alcatraz - 5th place. The most famous escape from this prison was carried out by Frank Morris and the English brothers. They escaped through a service tunnel, which was unguarded. According to the official version, the fugitives were considered missing, but there were rumors that relatives of the former prisoners received letters from them from South America.
4th place occupies a mass exodus from "Libby". In February 1864, during the American Civil War, more than a hundred prisoners escaped from a prison located in Virginia. The prison was famous for its terrible living conditions and complete unsanitary conditions.
3rd place takes the escape of Johnny D. This man was one of the most famous criminals of the 30s in America. Johnny was serving time for multiple bank robberies. Twice he managed to escape from American prisons, but on March 22, 1934, he was killed while resisting arrest.
Escape by helicopter takes 2nd position in the ranking. Prisoner Pascal Payet escaped twice with the help of an airplane and friends who were at large. Between his stints in prison, he was able to rescue several more people using a helicopter. The first escape was made in 2001, Payet remained at large for four years, the second escape was in 2007. But three months later he was caught again. Now all information about its placement is classified by the police to avoid such cases.
1 place of honor belongs to an unnoticed escape. Julien Chateaurd was convicted of arson. After arriving at the London prison, Shatorde hid under the bottom of the van, thus leaving the territory of the correctional facility. His disappearance was noticed seven hours later when, while reviewing camera footage, one of the security guards saw a strange shadow under the truck. The most interesting thing is that after three days in freedom, Shatord returned to the police station and confessed.
Dreaming about distant countries is common for children and adults. But this is perhaps the most amazing country. A country. Island. Continent. And all this is about Australia! South of Indonesia, between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, lies this smallest continent on the globe. When talking about this wonderful part of our planet, we will often use superlatives and the word “most”.
The flattest state in the world. The landforms in this part of the earth are quite shallow. There are no high mountains and very few rivers here. Perhaps the only big river is the Murray-Darling. Australia is the driest continent inhabited by humans. No more than 500 mm of precipitation per year falls on its deserts, semi-deserts of the Center and West and the jungles of the eastern and southeastern coasts. The coast cannot boast of a large number of bays and coves, because... The coastline is quite flat. The largest bays are the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Great Australian Bight.
Important physical characteristics of the island also include the Great Barrier Reef - the longest coral reef in the world. Its length is 2300 km and it is visible from space.
Beautiful cities are located along the ocean coast, and there are numerous huge sandy beaches. In winter there is a huge amount of snow in the mountains, such as the Snowy Mountains or the Australian Alps. Sometimes - more than in the entire mountainous Switzerland.
The cleanest air in the world is in Tasmania, Australia. The whitest sand is at Hyams Beach, located on the shores of Jersey Bay. It was even included in the Guinness Book of Records.
Australia is the oldest continent, but the youngest state. And yet...it has no land borders with any country. Leading in literacy rates, Australia is one of the ten countries in the world with the highest standard of living. It was ahead of such a monster as South America in diamond mining. After opening in 1979 diamond mine in Western Australia, it now ranks first in the world in the extraction of these precious stones. The country's currency is the Australian dollar, which, by the way, is made of plastic.
The largest city in this country is Sydney (population: 4 million people). The capital Canberra is not so crowded - its population is 300 thousand people. But this is where the largest building in the southern hemisphere is located. This is the magnificent Australian Parliament building.
The Sydney Opera House is an architectural marvel, built in 1960. Think about it, it has 1000 halls! Accommodates 5000 people! And the roof of this grandiose structure weighs 161 tons.
Another monumental structure is the largest arched bridge in Sydney Harbor Bridge. And the Sydney Television Tower is the tallest in the southern hemisphere. 
Making up 1% of the world's population, 88% of Australians live in cities. Moreover, literally a quarter of the population of this continent was born outside its borders. And 32% of women and 34% of men have never been engaged. 2.5 people per 1 sq. km is the population density of this country, whose area is comparable to populous Europe.
Once the largest prison, a former British penal colony...now a continent with the lowest crime rate on the globe. Although over the past 200 years, a total of 160 thousand prisoners have been exiled to this remote continent. The indigenous tribes (aboriginals) living in “New South Wales” (as Australia was called in those days) spoke 200 languages and dialects. Now they make up only 1.5% of the population and eke out a miserable, beggarly existence. But the other part of the population is not shy about their spending, for example when playing poker. 20% of the money lost worldwide in this insanely gambling game comes from residents of this country.
The world's largest pasture (in Australia it is called a ranch) is comparable to the territory of a European country such as Belgium. The most popular pets are sheep. And if the population of these animals is 150 million, then, for comparison, the population of the continent is 20 million people. In this amazing country there are 16 times more rabbits than people. There they are classified as pests. There are a lot of kangaroos, which are now even bred on ranches.
Marsupials living in Australia, like many millions of years ago, are not the only rare species of the animal world. In national parks and reserves of the continent, such as Buffalo, Kosciuszko, South West, etc., the emu, kangaroo, kookaburra, koala, various parrots, cockatoo, wild dog Dingo, platypus and echidna, snakes (among them very many poisonous).
Penguins and seals swim from Antarctica to the southern coast of the continent. There are many types of insects in this country: 4000 species of ants, 350 termites, 6000 flies, 1500 spiders.
©Inga Korneshova article written specifically for the site 
Since this continent is located in the southern hemisphere, when we have winter there is summer heat and beach season. And even the disk of the moon on this “island-continent” is turned upside down.
Once a huge prison, Australia now ranks first in the world's happiness rankings.
The history of modern Australia began in 1606, when the reckless Dutch captain Janszoon landed on an unknown land and named it “New Zealand” - in honor of the Dutch province.
Here this name did not take root, but later it went to the islands east of Australia. The Dutch did not take root either: the local population met them with hostility, several sailors died. Having given the order to raise the anchors, the captain wrote in the ship's log: “Nothing good can be done there.”
This conclusion was confirmed by his compatriot Captain Karstenz: “These shores are unsuitable for life, they are inhabited by poor and pitiful creatures.”
The largest prison in the world
Well, the Dutch have always been good sailors, but absolutely no warriors. The British are a different matter. James Cook was sent to extend the power of the crown into unknown lands - he did. With fire and sword, the English colonists won food and water for themselves on the Australian coast. The Dutch probably saw this only as confirmation of Captain Janszoon's words.
In those years, it already became clear that Great Britain had bitten off more land for itself than it could actually develop. The only use that has been found for Australia is a beautiful prison, well isolated from civilization (thousands of miles of water).
Already 18 years after Cook’s first visit, those who would later be delicately called “stowaways on Her Majesty’s ships”—convicts—landed ashore. Several tens of thousands of embittered people, often seriously ill, dying at hard labor, expelling the Aborigines and infecting them with diseases unknown in Australia - became the basis of the future of Australian society.
FOR REFERENCE : Now, in the 10s of the 21st century, Australia ranks first in the world happiness rating Better Life Index from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. GDP per capita is off the charts for 45 thousand dollars - a place in the world's top ten, of the large countries only the USA is ahead. 84% of Australians say they experience positive emotions “much more often” than negative ones.
How the hell did they do this?
At one time, Australia (like New Zealand) began to rise on gold and wool. Convicts began raising sheep, and later it literally became a national occupation (“Australia rides a sheep”) and until the end of World War II provided the main influx of funds into the country. Suffice it to say that in the 1880s, a unique “dog fence” was built here, more than 5 thousand kilometers long (more than enough to block off the European part of Russia from north to south), protecting pastures from dingoes.
Like New Zealand, Australia experienced a gold boom in the 1870s. But if easily accessible deposits quickly depleted, then in general Australian reserves have not yet become depleted. This is a real world pantry: almost the entire periodic table is mined here.
Australia secured its de facto independence from the British crown thanks to... meat freezing technology. After the opportunity arose to export not only wool, but also other parts of sheep, a country with a well-developed agriculture by that time could simply ignore London. And the British were wise enough not to start a military operation far away: the smell of the First World War was already in the air.
And they had little chance of winning. After all, it was the peculiar contingent of the first settlers that played a role in the success of Australia. Courage, endurance, perseverance, ability for physical labor were originally Australian trump cards over pampered Europe.
There was no happiness, but the war helped
And then the world wars thundered, which greatly enriched Australia, which was far from conflicts, both with an increased demand for raw materials and with human capital: thousands of qualified specialists left here from mobilization, battles, and devastation.
It must be said that not everyone was accepted: until the 1970s, the concept of “White Australia” dominated, and, say, Asians were actually denied entry. Only when the level of education in Asia rose to a more or less decent level was the ban lifted - and now people from China, Indochina, and India play an important role in the country.
Rich mineral resources, the wonderful climate of the southern coast, multiplied by the harsh Protestant ethic (its traces can still be traced in the country, although the majority of its inhabitants have long been no longer religious), helped turn the inhospitable continent into a prosperous land. There are quite a lot of problems in Australia, as elsewhere - now, let’s say, it’s the opposition to Muslim expansion (more precisely, the way of life that migrants bring with them), but it’s hard to doubt that Australians will cope with this scourge. This is not Europe, everything is more serious and simpler here.
