Nordic prison policy - exceptional or not?
Why are the Nordic penal institutions viewed as so "different" from a non-Nordic vantage point? Are Nordic prisons and penal policies in fact positive exceptions to the general rule?
Timber floating beneath the Midnight Sun. Photo: Stock x. change
If they are, what exactly are the exceptional qualities, and why are the Nordic societies lucky enough to have them? Or should the external perspective be nuanced? Are there important overlooked examples of Nordic "bad practice" in the penal area? Are the Nordic countries even similar enough to warrant such comparisons?
Or, on yet another level, is it even possible to still talk of a specifically Nordic penal model, bearing in mind the way prison service bureaucrats have eagerly imported policies, practices and programs from the various Anglo-American jurisdictions over the last decades? And, finally, could there be a specifically Nordic way of doing prison research, contributing to the gap between internal and external perspectives?
These were the questions raised in the invitation to the third biannual conference of the Scandinavian Studies of Confinement research network (SSC). Based on many of the conference papers, these and related questions will be further explored in an anthology to be published in 2011.
The aim is to explore and discuss the Nordic jurisdictions as contexts for the specific penal policies and practices that may or may not be described as exceptional. Partly comparative and partly theoretical in scope, combining empirical descriptions on different levels with more theoretically informed explorations of "the Nordic" in its various shapes and forms, the book as a whole aims to be a true academic dialogue. Leading prison scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as selected researchers from the Anglo world "looking in", come together and discuss what a specifically Nordic culture of control might look like, and if it is indeed a reality.
Editors are Jane Dullum and Thomas Ugelvik