As a former resident of Oregon, I would strongly suggest that the low recidivism rate is likely due to Oregon’s far above average level of available social services compared to most other states.
I would also loosely suggest that social services should be considered part of the rehabilitation pipeline.
This got me wondering, because I find the topic interesting but haven't really dug deeply into it in a while, and it's so much easier to get data (especially foreign language) now a days thanks to LLMs. It turns out that there's one huge factor that most people don't consider. That is - what is recidivism? Definitions vary radically between areas, and that goes a long way towards explaining the difference.
So for instance in both Norway and Oregon somebody isn't considered a recidivant unless they are arrested, prosecuted, and receive a minimal standard of punishment. In locations where you see much higher rates of recidivism it's because they use a more intuitive definition - if somebody's convicted of a crime, then they are a recidivant. By contrast here [1] you can see Oregon's raw data. And about 50% of people released from prison will be convicted for another crime within 5 years. In Norway 55% will face criminal charges within 4 years, and 42% will be convicted again!
So the whole point about Norway having an exceptional recidivism rate comes down, in large part, to statistical definitions! It'd be interesting to dig more into China/etc and see if there's some similar 'nuance' there. It often seems that so many things that 'everybody knows' just end up wrong upon closer inspection.
[1] - https://www.oregon.gov/cjc/CJC%20Document%20Library/2018SACG...
[2] - https://www.ssb.no/sosiale-forhold-og-kriminalitet/artikler-...