When Arne Nilsen, the governor of Norway’s Bastoy prison, told me that his prison was “an arena of developing responsibility” I knew immediately that he understood the fundamental flaw in the traditional model of imprisonment: the taking away of almost all personal responsibility.

Bastoy island sits just a couple of miles off the south-east coast of the country in the Oslo fjord. Instead of cell blocks and high walls, the 120 prisoners, many of whom are serving long sentences for the most serious sexual and violent offences, live in neat brightly-coloured bungalows. To be transferred to Bastoy from high-security prisons on the mainland they must have a demonstrable desire to change and a maximum of five years left to serve of their sentence.

Here everyone must work. Jobs include farming, forestry maintenance, timber processing or animal husbandry. Even the ferry that serves the island is staffed by prisoners, and when it makes its last trip of the day only four unarmed guards remain for the night. A self-contained, self-providing sustainable community, Bastoy is the world’s first, “ecological prison". Nilsen speaks with pride about what has become his vocation.

“The men who live here largely take responsibility for their own lives,” he said. “They have expressed a desire to change and we are here to help them achieve that."

On Bastoy I joined the Australian Network Ten television presenter Hamish Macdonald, who was making a programme for his series The Truth Is. We were both in the governor’s office drinking tea. Macdonald explained that prisons in Australia have similar problems to those in the UK, where I am from, especially in terms of their high reoffending rates. In Britain almost half of all released prisoners are reconvicted within a year. In Australia 60% of all those in custody have served at least one previous prison sentence.

Part of the problem appears to be society’s attitude towards people in prison, which makes it hard for governments to run progressive prison regimes. Stories in the popular press about prisoners “enjoying the cushy life” encourage politicians into knee-jerk reactions. Only recently, in an apparent effort to show voters he was “tough on crime”, the UK justice secretary, Chris Grayling, announced the introduction of compulsory prison uniforms and the most basic living regime for new prisoners. Macdonald said intermittently similar political pronouncements were made in Australia. “Nobody really seems to know the answer,” he said.

Macdonald knows that almost 30 years ago I was convicted of murder In Britain and sentenced to life imprisonment. When I told him that I had entered prison an ill-educated, dysfunctional brute he seemed disbelieving. “I got a lot of help in there,” I said, “but most of what I encountered on the cell blocks and landings had little to do with living a responsible, contributing life in civilised society.” I told him that fellow prisoners and I would smile to ourselves when we read in the press that we were living in “holiday camps.” So often the public were, and still are, being fed disingenuous rhetoric about prison and prisoners. If they knew the truth they might think differently – or so we would like to hope.

Nilsen says that perhaps the big difference is that in Norway there is no unnecessary political interference in the country’s prison system and processes, and no pressure from a cynical press. The reoffending rate for prisoners leaving Bastoy island is the justification for its regime. At just 16% it is the lowest in Europe. “The Norwegian people do not like crime or criminals,” he said. “But we have a duty to society and to potential victims to release people from prison less likely to commit more crime. And by paying attention and respecting the humanity of the men who come here, that is what we do.”

• Erwin James will appear on Channel Ten's The Truth Is? with Hamish Macdonald 8.30pm Monday night