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63 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 240 (1972)
Inmate Rights and Prison Reform in Sweden and Denmark

handle is hein.journals/jclc63 and id is 250 raw text is: TEE JOURNAL OF CRnIMNAL LAW, CRIMINOLOGY AND POLICE SCIENCE Copyright © 1972 by Northwestern University School of Law Vol. 63, No. 2 Prilnted in U.S.A. INMATE RIGHTS AND PRISON REFORM IN SWEDEN AND DENMARK DAVID A. WARD* Sweden's Osteraker prison outside of Stockholm is a walled, maximum custody facility for 195 prisoners. Confined in Osteraker are men who have committed serious crimes, such as homicide, robbery, and sale of narcotics; recidivists who did not profit from terms in open institutions;1 and men who escaped from open institutions or did not return from home leaves. This prison was the site, in early 1971, of unprecedented bargain- * Professor of Sociology, the University of Minne- sota. The materials upon which this paper is based were gathered while the author was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Sweden and Denmark during 1971. I wish to express my thanks for their assistance in arranging trips to prisons and meetings with National Correc- tional Administration personnel and in obtaining printed materials and reports: Gunnar Marnell, Director of the Eastern Correctional Region, Sweden; Norman Bishop, Chief of Research of the Swedish Na- tional Correctional Administration; Ulla Bondeson, Department of Sociology, Lund University; Professor Thomas Mathiesen, Institute of Social Research, Uni- versity of Oslo; Professor Karl Otto Christiansen of the Institute of Criminal Science, University of Copen- hagen; Bent Paludan-Miiller Director of the Danish Staff Training School; Superintendents Anderson and Heilbo of the Danish State Prisons at Renbaek and Kragskovhede; Catherine Djurclou of the Swedish Fulbright office and John Berg of the Danish Fulbright Office; and to Solveig Premack for translation assist- ance. I Open prisons were introduced in Sweden after a revision of the penal code in 1945. Under this reform: The cellular system was abolished and treatment in open institutions introduced as a normal form of imprisonment. By open institutions is meant institutions lacking surrounding walls, grill work or other security measures. About a third of the prison inmates are at present in open institutions. There has been no intention of abolishing closed institutions, but the Correctional Administration is making efforts to enlarge the use of open insti- tutions. The serving of longer prison terms is begun in closed institutions, the prisoner being transferred later, if possible, to an open institution. One who misbehaves in an open institution is returned to a closed one. Regardless of the type of institution, the law has specified that the execution of the sanc- tion shall aim at the inmate's re-adaptation to society. Aside from disciplinary measures, no meas- ures may be taken which inflict suffering on pris- oners in addition to the mere loss of liberty, which is considered -to be afflictive enough. Considering the usually terse and severely factual Swedish style of legal draftsmanship an unusual statement is found in the text of the code, namely that prisoners shall be treated with consideration for their human dignity. I. STRAHL, TE PENAL CODE or SWEDEN 7 (1965). ing sessions between inmates representing all Swedish prisoners and representatives of the Na- tional Correctional Administration. These meet- ings were held after the inmates at Osteraker had staged a hunger strike that ultimately spread to half of Sweden's 5,000 inmates. Several weeks after the list of proposals made at Attica were published in The New York Times, I took a copy with me on a visit to Osteraker with an American judge. During the tour we met with the eight members of the inmate council. These men had been elected by their fellow prisoners, and the leader of the group was an articulate black American. The inmates informed the judge and me that the discussion would be tape recorded- for our records. I proposed a comparison of the complaints made by the Attica inmates with the concerns of inmates at Osteraker, and the council members were enthusiastic about the opportunity to compare notes with some fellow prisoners in America. They were not prepared, however, for the primitive level of-some of the Attica prisoners' complaints. It has been many years since Swedish prisoners were concerned with such problems as adequate food, water, shelter; true religious freedom; and adequate medical treatment. 2 With regard to the Attica proposal that the minimum wage be paid for prison work, the Swed- ish inmates remarked that their wages also needed improvement and that the National Correctional Administration still had not taken action on a long-standing proposal for inmates to be paid wages comparable to those in the free world. In- mates at Tillberga, one of Sweden's factory pris- ons, may earn up to $30 a week, but men in non- factory prisons, of which Osteraker is one, are paid on a piecework basis at about one-fourth of the factory rate. With regard to other Attica demands the council members agreed that there were some prison administrators who were making an effort to pro- vide realistic and effective rehabilitation pro- grams and that progress (with inmate pressure) had been made in bringing about an adequate 2N.Y. Times, Sept. 13, 1971, at 71, col. 1.

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