Scandinavian Penal History, Culture and Prison Practice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction: Punishment, Welfare and Prison History in Scandinavia

      • Peter Scharff Smith, Thomas Ugelvik

      Pages 3-31

3. The Developmentof Scandinavian Prison Practice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 33-33

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   2. “First We Build the Factory, Then We Add the Institution”: Prison, Work and Welfare State in Sweden c.1930–1970

      • Roddy Nilsson

      Pages 35-56

   3. Prisons of Labor: Social Democracy and the Triple Transformation of the Politics of Punishment in Norway, 1900–2014

      • Victor L. Shammas

      Pages 57-80

   4. The Rise of the Open Prisons and the Breakthrough of the Principle of Normalisation from the 1930s Until Today

      • Peter Fransen

      Pages 81-102

   5. A Culture of Intervention—Vagrancy and Drug Treatment in Sweden from the Late 19th Century Until Today

      • Robert Andersson

      Pages 103-125

4. The Scandinavian Model: From Remand to Release

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127

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   2. Punishment Without Conviction? Scandinavian Pre-trial Practices and the Power of the “Benevolent” State

      • Peter Scharff Smith

      Pages 129-155

   3. Guarding, Guiding, Gate Opening: Prison Officer Work in a Norwegian Welfare Context

      • Terje Emil Fredwall

      Pages 157-176

   4. Treating Drug Abusers in Prison: Competing Paradigms Anchored in Different Welfare Ideologies. The Case of Sweden

      • Anders Bruhn, Odd Lindberg, Per Åke Nylander

      Pages 177-204

   5. Is Prison Drug Treatment a Welfare Service?

      • Torsten Kolind

      Pages 205-224

   6. The Development of Education in Norwegian Prisons

      • Torfinn Langelid

      Pages 225-247

   7. Exceptional Procedures? Offenders’ Experiences of Justice in Re-entry Work

      • Ingrid Rindal Lundeberg

      Pages 249-269

   8. Released to the “Battlefield” of the Danish Welfare State: A Battle Between Support and Personal Responsibility

      • Annette Olesen

      Pages 271-295

   9. Scandinavian Acceptionalism? Developments in Community Sanctions in Norway

      • Gerhard Ploeg

      Pages 297-324

5. The Principle of Normalisation—Theory and Practice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 325-325

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   2. Normalisation in Nordic Prisons—From a Prison Governor’s Perspective

      • Hans Jørgen Engbo

      Pages 327-352

   3. Prison Food in Denmark: Normal Responsibility or Ethnocentric Imaginations?

      • Linda Kjær Minke, Amy B. Smoyer

      Pages 353-376

This book draws on historical and cross-disciplinary studies to critically examine penal practices in Scandinavia. The Nordic countries are often hailed by international observers as ‘model societies’, with egalitarian welfare policies, low rates of poverty, humane social policies and human rights oriented internal agendas. This book, however, paints a much more nuanced picture of the welfare policies, ideologies and social control in strong centralistic states. Based on extensive new empirical data, leading Nordic and international scholars discuss the relationship between prison conditions in Scandinavia and Scandinavian social policy more generally, and argue that it is not always liberating and constructive to be embraced by a powerful welfare state. This book is essential reading for researchers of state punishment in Scandinavia, and it is highly relevant for anyone interested in the ‘Nordic Model’ of social policy.

• criminology
• culture
• penology
• politics
• social science
• state
• welfare
• policing

• Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

  Peter Scharff Smith, Thomas Ugelvik

Peter Scharff Smith is Professor of Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway.


Thomas Ugelvik is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, Norway. 

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