It was a stunning political debate that would be hard to imagine in Britain. But it was not so shocking in Norway, where a general election is taking place on Monday.

The topic was crime policy and – so far so normal – it featured a panel of politicians discussing the best ways to reduce crime. But the live TV show was set inside a high security prison, the audience consisted exclusively of guards and prisoners, with one inmate, Bjørnar Dahl, taking part in the panel alongside the justice minister and the deputy leader of the main opposition party.

"It was high time the politicians came here to talk about crime policy," explains Dahl, 43, a few days after the event. "This is about us, what happens in prisons and how we can return to society in a way that is beneficial to everyone."

Dahl, who is serving a five-year sentence for complicity in smuggling amphetamines, stole the show. When the representative from the populist Progress party, Per Sandberg, argued that there was an increase in criminality in Norway caused by gangs of Eastern Europeans organising beggars in the streets of Oslo, Dahl dismissed him as talking "crap" and asked him whether he had any knowledge of the situations the beggars were coming from.

When Sandberg tried to argue that the solution to reduce drug abuse in prisons was to increase the level of control on inmates, Dahl shot back: "We're controlled from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. I get strip-searched every time I have a visit and all my phone calls are monitored. You can't have more control than we have now."

The primetime show, one of the top debate shows during the election campaign, has caused no outrage in Norway, as it would probably would in the UK. There were no headlines expressing shock that inmates could voice their opinions in public debate. Nor was there condemnation of NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, for hosting a political debate inside a prison.

If anything, the reactions have been upbeat. In an online chat after the show, most of the posters wished Dahl good luck for the future and thanked him for giving them an insight into prison life. Dahl even received flowers from the Red Cross.

This comes as no surprise to some. "In Norway, there is more emphasis than in England and Wales on seeing prisons as part of normal society," says Nils Christie, a professor of criminology from the University of Oslo. "If you take the public services offered in prisons – for instance education, health or the library – they are the same for prisoners as for the rest of society. There is not a distinct, prison-run system of public services, as there can be in other countries."

He adds: "When you listen to the justice minister, he generally emphasises the need for reintegration into society rather than the need for punishment."

That's not to say that crime and punishment issues are uncontroversial here. The Progress party, the largest party in opposition, has for years called for tougher, longer sentences for perpetrators of violent crimes – a view that has been adopted by the outgoing Labour-led government. "That was a very surprising move for a Labour government supported by a socialist party," says Frank Aarebrot, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Bergen. "They were desperate to cut the grass from under the feet of the Progress party."

Compared to Britain, however, Norway is still less repressive. It has one of the lowest incarceration rates in Europe – less than half of those of England and Wales or Scotland.

And prisons are much easier to access for the general public. "There is a greater tendency to keep prisons open [to the public] so that people can see inmates as human beings they can identify with," says Christie.

Meeting Dahl was a case in point. The prison's press office had arranged an interview a day after I put in a request, after asking Dahl if he would like to receive a journalist.

When I asked whether I could visit Dahl's cell, the press officer said it would not be possible today. Not because it was against rules, but because the staff were exceptionally busy that day, as the inmates were voting for the general election and had to be escorted to the in-house voting office.

So how did Dahl vote? "I voted Labour," he says. "I feel they fight for the regular guy in the street, rather than the rich one. And I would like Knut Storberget [the current justice minister] to have a chance to continue his policy to improve living conditions inside prisons."