NCJ Number
210228
Date Published
2005
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the thesis of Pratt in Punishment and Civilization (2002) that penal policy in modern society departed from the civilizing process at the beginning of the 1980s with the exception of Scandinavia.
Abstract
In 2002, Pratt, a researcher, stated that a sharpening of criminal justice policy took place in many countries in the early 1980s but that Scandinavia appears more or less to be an exception. This paper examines this thesis by utilizing crime rates and victimization studies to determine whether criminality is different in Scandinavia compared with other European countries. In analyzing Scandinavia’s penal policy, the paper examines criminal justice policy in reference to imprisonment rates, fear of crime and punitive attitudes, and the welfare model for influences on crime rates and criminal justice policy. Other interpretations of changes in criminal justice policy are presented as well. In examining all these issues, Pratt seems correct in stating a sharpening of criminal justice policy in many countries in the 1980s with the exception of Scandinavia. Crime rates have been on the increase in the Nordic countries as well as in other European countries, to about the same level. Fear of crime remains on a lower level in Scandinavia and punitive attitudes seem to be less repressive in the Nordic countries. Media play a somewhat more responsible role than in Anglo-Saxon countries. Imprisonment rates have stayed very much on a lower, similar Scandinavian level. Lastly, the general welfare model has not reduced crime levels but seems to have had somewhat of a softening effect on criminal justice policy. References