Probation practice, desistance and the penal field in Norway
| Author | John Todd-Kvam |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895820953192 |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820953192
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2022, Vol. 22(3) 349 –366
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895820953192
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Probation practice, desistance
and the penal field in Norway
John Todd-Kvam
University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract
While Scandinavia in general and Norway in particular have been the focus of much criminological
interest, the work of probation has largely been overlooked in favour of prisons. This article
seeks therefore to contribute to our knowledge of Norwegian penality and desistance by
analysing how probation caseworkers describe their practice. Caseworkers have a relational,
contextualised understanding of probation clients and the challenges they face. That being said,
even in a Scandinavian welfare state, caseworkers see the process of reintegration and change
as difficult, highlighting a lack of human and social capital and the challenges of navigating an
increasingly complex and impersonal welfare apparatus.
Keywords
Desistance, Norway, probation, reintegration, Scandinavian exceptionalism
Introduction
Probation in Norway has long existed in the shadow of prisons, be it in terms of political and
media attention, sentencing practice or indeed research interest. This article comes at a key
point in the development of the Norwegian penal field, where we are witnessing significant
cuts to Norwegian Correctional Service budgets, increased use of electronic monitoring to
enable serving short prison sentences at home and an intention to operationally integrate and
erase boundaries between probation and prisons. In 2018, probation implemented more sen-
tences than prisons for the first time ever (largely because probation implement prison sen-
tences served at home under electronic monitoring) (Kriminalomsorgen, 2019).
When compared to Norwegian prisons, remarkably little has been written about the
work of probation. The research that does address probation tends, like much penal
exceptionalism research, to take a systemic, top-down perspective. Ploeg and Sandlie
Corresponding author:
John Todd-Kvam, University of Oslo, Postboks 6706, St. Olavs plass 5, 0130 OSLO, Norway.
Email: jjtodd@uio.no
953192CRJ0010.1177/1748895820953192Criminology & Criminal JusticeTodd-Kvam
research-article2020
Article
350 Criminology & Criminal Justice 22(3)
(2011), Johnsen and Fridhov (2019), and Todd-Kvam and Ugelvik (2019) take this per-
spective in providing systemic accounts of how probation should work in the eyes of
policy makers, while identifying challenges to delivery of these policy goals. Similarly,
Ploeg (2017) describes how central features of the Norwegian Correctional Service
apply to probation, highlighting discretionary authority as a key element of community
sanctions. Moving away from a top-down perspective, Norwegian probationers were
included in the pilot study on experiencing supervision in Europe (Durnescu et al., 2018),
where respondents reported broadly similar experiences to probationers in other jurisdic-
tions. Still, we know little about how probation caseworkers in Norway see themselves,
their clients and their practice as a whole.
Furthermore, while high-level policy documents noted the relevance of desistance
research for reintegration and resettlement work as long ago as 2008 (Justis- og
Politidepartement, 2008), research on desistance in Norway is still very much nascent.
Probation practice elsewhere has been the focus of much desistance-inspired research,
looking at how various forms of practice may help or hinder desistance. This article
seeks therefore to contribute in three interrelated ways. One, it provides the first analysis
of how a small sample of probation caseworkers in Norway describe their practice,
thereby extending our knowledge of Norwegian penality both horizontally (beyond the
prison) and vertically (from system-level analysis closer to lived experience). Two, it
advances our knowledge of desistance and, importantly, its challenges in the context of
a Scandinavian welfare state. Finally, it seeks to capture how caseworkers understand
their role at a time of great change: this is something sought by those in probation and I
consider it particularly important to crystallise this knowledge at a time when new tasks
and organisational models are being introduced.
Background on probation in Norway
Originally established as a free-standing foundation in 1849, the trajectory of probation in
Norway has been of increasing integration into the state, most recently in the form of merging
probation offices with prisons (Kriminalomsorgen, 2020). This merging is intended to pro-
vide a ‘seamless implementation of punishment under shared leadership’ (Kriminalomsorgen,
2020), though risks attenuating probation’s social work–based professional approach.
Caseworkers currently have an educational background in social work or similar and there is
an ambition that all are trained in motivational interviewing. Persson and Svensson (2011)
have discussed how, in Sweden, this social work background shapes organisational culture
within probation, particularly through professional discretion. This would appear to apply in
Norway as well, with both Ploeg (2017) and the informants in this study highlighting discre-
tion as important. While the increasingly blurred boundaries between probation and prisons
make headcounts challenging, historically at least there have been approximately 350 FTE
(full-time equivalent) probation staff (compared to around 3600 prison staff). While Jill
Annison (2013: 45) has highlighted that probation in England and Wales saw a shift away
from being male-dominated in the mid-1990s, female employees have been in a significant
majority in Norwegian probation since at least 1981 (NSD, n.d.).
Efforts to keep caseloads below 20 per caseworker for those managing community
sentences and early release on probation have been successful until recently, though even
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