Jail reform advocates usually level to the Nordic international locations as examples of “how to do prison right”. The low charges of imprisonment and extra humane method to incarceration in these international locations have lengthy been thought-about distinctive by researchers.
In Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland, life in jail resembles the surface world as a lot as attainable.
Nevertheless, like every jail system, they aren’t good. Prison insurance policies in these international locations are extra punitive than they have been 40 years in the past. There are a myriad of causes for this, akin to stronger assist for conservative political events and harder approaches to crime and fewer reliance on specialists in legal coverage.
Consequently, Nordic prisons are going through a few of the identical challenges as prisons within the UK, together with overcrowding and understaffing.
Norway
Norwegian prisoners have the fitting to vote, and their schooling and medical wants are taken care of by the identical lecturers and medical doctors used within the surrounding neighborhood. In lots of prisons, they’re entitled to conjugal visits with their partner.
Norway’s jail system is praised for its low recidivism charges (solely 20% after two years), although it ought to be famous that many Norwegian prisoners are overseas nationals, half of whom are deported after serving their sentence.
By and enormous, criminals in Nordic international locations are punished by means of lack of liberty, whereas retaining different rights. Time in jail is spent attempting to assist prisoners put together to stay a crime-free life.
In an annual report on a go to to at least one Norwegian jail, the Norwegian Parliamentary Ombud raised considerations about rising self-harm incidents, understaffing and in depth use of solitary confinement. There have been 20 occasions as many self-harm incidents in 2022 than 4 years prior.
Finland
Within the Nineteen Sixties and 70s, Finland had the best fee of imprisonment in western Europe. Reforms have been introduced in to handle this and by the Nineties they’d a few of the lowest charges, which they’ve largely maintained. However the pattern could also be reversing, partly resulting from harder legal insurance policies, with stricter sentences for sexual offences and gun crimes.
Finnish prisons, like these in Norway, are thought-about revolutionary. Prisons are designed to be as good as attainable, with prisoners inspired to manipulate their very own lives and keep related to their neighborhood. The intention is to assist them reintegrate into society upon launch.
Final 12 months, Finland’s jail service mentioned that the nation’s prisons are full. They raised considerations that as a result of capability, prisoners usually are not getting sufficient day trip of their cell, nor sufficient entry to significant exercise.
In addition to prisons being overcrowded, they’re understaffed. Because of finances cuts between 2006 and 2016, the place round 17% of employees needed to be reduce, there’s a scarcity of officers throughout the service who’ve undertaken the 16-month coaching programme. Since unqualified officers can not perform sure duties, this places extra strain on the understaffed, certified officers.
Denmark
For the previous few years, Denmark has additionally confronted challenges of overcrowded prisons. The occupancy degree of Danish prisons in 2023 was 101.2% (as in, 1.2% over capability), the best in round 80 years. That is the results of modifications akin to longer jail sentences for rape and violent assaults.
I just lately interviewed Danish criminologist Anne Okkels Birk, who mentioned that politicians need prisons to be harder and harsher.
The present Danish minister of justice, when speaking about legal gangs final 12 months, mentioned harsh punishments are crucial when coping with severe violence – even when the perpetrator dedicated the crime at a younger age. This stands in distinction to the beliefs usually held internationally about Nordic penal insurance policies.
The punitive panorama in Denmark is seeing extra infractions, akin to smoking contained in the jail, punishable by time in disciplinary solitary confinement. In 2019, 4 occasions as many individuals frolicked in solitary confinement than in 2001. Consequently, jail officers have highlighted considerations about their capacity to construct optimistic relations with prisoners.
This makes dynamic safety – a way whereby jail employees assess dangers by partaking with prisoners and spending time with them, slightly than relying solely on cameras, locks and gates – tougher. Dynamic safety is an everyday function of Nordic prisons, although it’s carried out in different jail programs too.
Whereas prisoner numbers have elevated, the quantity of jail employees has decreased for the eleventh consecutive 12 months. In 2023, there have been 27% fewer jail officers than a decade prior, resulting from issue in recruiting and retaining employees.
In prisons like Nyborg in Denmark, work foremen – who assist enhance prisoners’ abilities and employability – have had to assist jail officers with their duties as a substitute, which means many workshops are sometimes closed.
Denmark is renting 300 jail areas in Kosovo (pictured) to take care of overcrowding in Danish prisons.
Valdrin Xhemaj/EPA-EFE
Danish jail officers are going through their very own private challenges. A 2020 research into present and former jail officers discovered that 11% have a prognosis of post-traumatic stress dysfunction, whereas their illness ranges are over 50% greater than different state workers. An assault on a jail officer happens, on common, every single day.
The variety of folks in pre-trial detention in Denmark has elevated since 2017, with newest figures stating they make up round 38.8% of the jail inhabitants. They’re usually of their cells alone for as much as 23 hours a day, regardless of being presumed harmless till discovered responsible.
Denmark is prone to being wanting a thousand jail locations this 12 months. In response, the nation has agreed to hire 300 jail locations in Kosovo. Consultants have expressed considerations about human rights points this settlement might trigger, together with the issue prisoners may have in receiving visits from family members. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture expressed considerations on a 2021 go to to Kosovo concerning the prevalence of corruption amongst jail officers and bodily abuse in the direction of prisoners.
The Nordic international locations nonetheless present a supply of inspiration relating to their smaller jail populations and extra humane approaches to imprisonment. However as political beliefs on crime and punishment evolve, they’re clearly not immune from the issues that many international locations, together with the UK, face.
