The public sense of justice in Scandinavia: A study of attitudes towards punishments
| Author | Helgi Gunnlaugsson,Kristina Jerre,Flemming Balvig,Henrik Tham,Aarne Kinnunen |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370815571948 |
| Published date | 01 May 2015 |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Criminology
2015, Vol. 12(3) 342 –361
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370815571948
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The public sense of justice
in Scandinavia: A study
of attitudes towards
punishments
Flemming Balvig
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Helgi Gunnlaugsson
University of Iceland, Iceland
Kristina Jerre and Henrik Tham
Stockholm University, Sweden
Aarne Kinnunen
Ministry of Justice, Finland
Abstract
Crime policy is increasingly legitimized by reference to the public sense of justice. A research
project has therefore been conducted in all five Scandinavian countries in order to examine the
public’s views on punishment. These views have been examined by means of simple questions
in telephone interviews, by vignettes in postal questionnaires, and by focus groups having seen a
film of a mock trial. The results show that, when asked simple questions, the public want stiffer
sentences. In their assessments of the vignette crimes, the public demands on average lower
prison sentences than judges, and this tendency becomes stronger in the focus group study.
The propensities towards punitiveness seem to diminish with more information and increasing
proximity to the parties involved.
Keywords
Public sense of justice, punitiveness, Scandinavia
Corresponding author:
Henrik Tham, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: henrik.tham@criminology.su.se
571948EUC0010.1177/1477370815571948European Journal of CriminologyFlemming Balvig
research-article2015
Article
Balvig et al. 343
The trend in crime policy
Leading politicians and the media in the Scandinavian countries have made very clear
statements that public opinion must serve to guide the sanctions that are awarded by the
courts. A Danish Justice Minister stated in an interview: ‘There has recently been a great
deal of focus on economic crime. At the same time, there has been a much greater preoc-
cupation with getting criminals to desist from their criminal existence than with ensuring
that punishments correspond to what ordinary people now think is right and correct’
(cited in Balvig, 2006: 43). When the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) adopted a new
penal law in 2009, sanctions for violent and sexual offences were stiffened substantially
in the context of complete agreement among the political parties that it was necessary for
court sentences to match the levels demanded by public opinion (Balvig et al., 2010:
236). In Iceland there is much to suggest that what is referred to as the will of the people
has been used to justify a consistent move towards harsher sentencing policy over recent
years (Balvig et al., 2010: 249), and an editorial in a leading newspaper has written that
‘[i]t is still evident that the Supreme Court is too lenient when it comes to serious sexual
offences and other violence; the public is outraged’ (Morgunblaðið, 2007). In Finland,
too, the media often report on individual cases that are said to have been judged too leni-
ently by the courts, and the public is said to be demanding stiffer punishments than are
meted out in the courts, particularly for violent crime and sex offences. And finally, a
Swedish Justice Minister has stated, in connection with the presentation of a parliamen-
tary bill that would increase sentencing levels for serious violent crime: ‘There is an
impatience out there in Swedish society, where people perceive that the sanctions for
very serious violent crime are not in line with the public sense of justice . . . this more
severe view that is found out there among the people cannot be seen in the practice of the
courts’ (cited in Balvig et al., 2010: 240).
The perception that the public is in favour of more severe sanctions is nothing new.
What is different is the political significance ascribed to this public punitiveness. Earlier,
the public sense of justice, and the public’s punitivity in particular, was described as
constituting an obstacle to humane and treatment-focused reforms (Bondesson, 2003;
Jerre, 2013a: 2). An analysis based on the parliamentary budget bills since the 1970s of
one of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden, shows that, whereas earlier criminal sanc-
tions and other reactions were legitimized by reference to providing care for the offender,
more and more it is caring for the public and its assumed sense of justice that lies at the
heart of crime policy (Andersson, 2002). Media articles referring to political statements
about the public sense of justice have increased sharply since the 1970s (Jerre, 2013a: 1).
In countries outside Scandinavia, the ‘punitive turn’ in crime policy has also been at least
partly attributed to the demands of the public (Garland, 2001; Roberts et al., 2002). And
one author describes the development thus: ‘What distinguishes recent events is that “the
public” is not only on the stage but may become a lead player’ (Freiberg, 2003: 223).
The shift from sanctions, which can be judged on the basis of their utility, to punish-
ment, where penal value is determined by reference to the will of the people, also means
that criminology is put to one side. When the general sense of justice becomes the basis
for crime policy, researchers are left out since they are no longer required to examine
whether or not punishments are producing desired effects. What criminologists can do,
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