Handbook on Prisons by Yvonne Jewkes & Ben Crewe & Jamie Bennett

Author:Yvonne Jewkes & Ben Crewe & Jamie Bennett [Jewkes, Yvonne]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-02-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Prisons as welfare institutions?

Punishment and the Nordic model

Thomas Ugelvik1

Nordic exceptionalism?

In the field of comparative penology, the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – are frequently used as an exception to the general rule. As the story goes, these societies are somehow able to resist a current global move towards growing rates of imprisonment and tougher crime control policies. Nordic prisons are seen as beacons of humanity and decency in a world of ever-increasing penal populism. In a much-discussed two-part article, John Pratt (2008a, 2008b) described the Nordic societies as exhibiting a specifically Nordic penal culture, resulting in what he called Scandinavian or Nordic exceptionalism in the penal area;2 the exceptional qualities, according to Pratt, being consistently low rates of imprisonment and comparatively humane prison conditions.

Imprisonment rates are, in theory at least, simple enough to compare (if, for the time being, we bracket the headaches associated with comparing statistical figures produced by different government agencies in different countries), and several other authors have in fact done so (Cavadino and Dignan 2006; Lacey 2008). The novelty of Pratt’s approach was that the question of prison conditions was added to the simple comparison of imprisonment rates.

Pratt’s main point is that the prison regimes in two clusters of societies are systematically different. The societies making up what he calls the Anglophone cluster – England, New Zealand and Australia – are more punitive. Their prisons are simple and austere, and their politicians are keen to be seen as credibly ‘tough on crime’. The societies making up the Nordic cluster – empirically he is talking about Finland, Norway and Sweden – are more welfare oriented, and their prisons are celebrated either for being relatively safe and humane institutions that provide decent living conditions for prisoners or, depending on whom you ask, notorious for being soft holiday camps for murderers and rapists.

Like imprisonment rates, the quality of prisons and the conditions they provide for prisoners is of course an empirical question. Empirically, ‘prison conditions’ can be operationalized in a number of different ways. One could focus on more objective aspects of prison life, and ask whether in-cell sanitation facilities are available or count the number of books in the prison library. Or one could choose a more subjective approach and ask prisoners what they think of various aspects of prison life. Is the food tasty? Are the prison officers decent and professional? Do you feel safe here?

The exceptionalism debate has, so far, too often revolved around the question of whether the Nordic prison systems really are or are not that exceptional. The discussion has often lacked the appropriate level of specificity. Pratt later expanded on the exceptionalism thesis in several texts co-authored with Anna Eriksson (Pratt and Eriksson 2011a, 2011b, 2012). Much of the debate has taken the less specific argument that can be found in Pratt’s original 2008 article as a starting point. Here, the general argument that Nordic prisons and prison systems are more humane and decent than their Anglophone counterparts was largely held up by anecdotal examples.

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