French & Danish prisons described in "Catch Me If You Can" (spoilers)

Factual Questions
1

This is not really from the movie, but from the book. (Only the French one is in the movie) The main character is sent to prison in a few countries for counterfeiting. The descriptions of the prisons struck me as hard to believe in our modern world (and this is a bit hazy since I don’t have the book at hand here):

French prison: solitary confinement, naked, no light. Almost inhumane.

Danish prison: like a hospital ward. Very little security. Barely even punishment. (This might not have been Danish, but definitely some Scandanivian country.)

The book took place in the late 70’s I believe. Were the prisons really like that back then? And are the prisons still like that now in these two countries?

2

I haven’t read his book, but I’ve seen Frank Abegnale interviewed. He said he’d been in prison in three countries: Sweden, France and the United States. And while he didn’t go into detail, he said (essentially) “A Swedish prison is like a Holiday Inn. A French prison is a hellhole. An American prison is somewhere in between.”

3

Here’s a link on Amnesty International’s web site about some recent findings regarding France’s prisons:

http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/ar2000web.nsf/countries/dd0509c219703ee2802568f200552922

Since these sorts of things tend to improve over time, it’s likely things were worse 30 years ago, rather than better.

Here’s also a link to a description of a book written by a French doctor who worked in one of the large prisons in France for 7 years:

http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7233/465/a

4

Here’s an article that describes a women’s prison in Sweden as “lavish:”

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1027079.htm

Another article, same subject:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2552422a12,00.html