‘Mr. Larsson is walking out again’. The origins and development of Scandinavian prison systems
| Author | Anna Eriksson,John Pratt |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865810393105 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
44(1) 7–23
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865810393105
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Article
‘Mr. Larsson is walking out
again’. The origins and
development of Scandinavian
prison systems
John Pratt
Victoria University of Wellington
Anna Eriksson
Monash University
Abstract
The Scandinavian countries have become known for their low rates of imprisonment and
relatively humane prison conditions. What, though, has made possible this model of impris-
onment, so different from that of the Anglophone world? This article argues that contem-
porary Scandinavian prison policy has been the product of long-term socio-political forces
and cultural values leading to three distinct phases of prison development: (1) 1870s–1930s:
separate confinement, penance and the influence of Lutheran pastors in prison practice; (2)
1930s–1960s: welfare, medicalization and work; (3) 1970s–present: a tension between the
‘normalization’ of prison life against recent concerns with security. The article traces in the
development and interplay of these three phases against the background of social, political
and cultural change in Scandinavia.
Keywords
medico-psychology, normalization, Scandinavian prisons, separate confinement, welfare
Mr Larsson was a character in an anecdote told to one of us by the Norwegian crim-
inologist Thomas Mathiesen. In his early days as a researcher in the 1960s, Mathiesen
was in conversation with the governor of a Norwegian open prison. On observing, from
his office window, Larsson strolling to freedom out of the prison grounds, the governor
remarked to Mathiesen that ‘Mr Larsson is walking out again’ then resumed their con-
versation. There was no alarm or security call. No doubt he was confident that Larsson
would return and resume his sentence when he was ready to do so – as, it seems, he had
done on previous occasions.
Corresponding authors:
John Pratt, Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6001, New Zealand
Email: john.pratt@vuw.ac.nz
Anna Eriksson, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Clayton, Vic, Australia
Email: Anna.Eriksson@arts.monash.edu.au
The anecdote’s significance is that it exemplifies the benign humanitarianism that
Scandinavian prison systems had by then become renowned for (see, e.g., Connery,
1966; Jenkins, 1968). This largely remains so when contrasted with Anglophone
(hereafter ‘Anglo’) prison systems. Drawing on the descriptions of Scandinavian
prison life in Pratt (2008a), some of the main differences between the two clusters of
societies are:
1. Prison size – 50- or 60-bed institutions are not uncommon in Scandinavia, whereas
these tend to be much larger in the Anglo countries.
2. There is more routine interaction between officers and inmates in Scandinavia.
3. General ‘quality of prison life’ – diet, cleanliness, quietness, personal space, visit-
ing arrangements – in both open and closed prisons seems much higher in
Scandinavia.
4. There are higher levels of prisoner involvement in work or classes in Scandinavia.
5. There is a much higher proportion – about one third – of inmates in open prisons in
Scandinavia than in the Anglo countries.
6. The evidence of military tradition and ancestry in the prison service is much less
obvious in Scandinavia.
7. Security has less of a defining role in Scandinavian prison administration than in the
Anglo countries.
There are also major differences in prison rates: England, New Zealand and Australia
have two or three times as many people in prison per head of population than the
Scandinavian countries (eg the rate of imprisonment in New Zealand is 203 per 100000
of population; that for Finland is 60). But why are Scandinavian prisons and prison
policies so different? It needs to be understood that this ‘difference’ is not some sort of
natural, unchanging icon that these countries possess – there has also been a darker side to
Scandinavian imprisonment with prolonged use of cellular confinement, high use of indef-
inite detention, and the extensive influence of medico-psychiatric power. Instead, we argue
that Scandinavian prison conditions should be understood as the contingent outcome of
long-term socio-political forces and cultural values. In these respects, from the birth of
modern imprisonment in this region in the mid 19th century, prison development can be
categorized as undergoing three distinct phases. First, up to the 1930s, prison represented
a sanctuary from the temptations of the world outside. Second, from the 1930s to the late
1960s, it represented a sanatorium for morally and mentally sick offenders. Third, from
the 1970s to the present, the intention has been to ‘normalize’ the prison, with its internal
conditions reflecting those of the outside world (even if this intention has, to varying
degrees, been compromised by the recent intensification of security in some closed pris-
ons). We trace and explain the routes followed during the course of these transitions and
conclude with a discussion of the sociological significance of the development of
Scandinavian prisons ‘difference’. We should add that while there have obviously also
been differences in the respective prison histories of each Scandinavian country (our
research is based on Finland, Norway and Sweden), our intention in this article is to
chart the development of prison arrangements that became typical of this region, based
on the shared characteristics and common social arrangements of the societies within it.
1
8Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 44(1)
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