By C1 Staff
STOCKHOLM — Swedish prison numbers have been falling since 2004, which leads the director-general of the country’s prison and probation service to believe that their method is working.
“Our role is not to punish. The punishment is the prison sentence: they have been deprived of their freedom. The punishment is that they are with us,” Nils Oberg told The Guardian.
Oberg will be giving an annual lecture on penal reform in London, comparing and contrasting the correctional systems of both countries.
Sweden is currently closing prisons and reducing their prison population. Numbers have fallen from 5,722 to 4,500, out of a population of 9.5 million. The UK, in contrast, has a prison population of 85,000 out of a population of 57 million.
Recidivism rates in Sweden are around 40 percent, less than half of the UK and most other European countries, and Oberg attributes the success to the country’s effective policies on prisoner rehabilitation.
A survey conducted last year to identify issues that affected their criminal behavior didn’t bring up any surprises, but also confirmed to officials that each inmate’s issues were unique and the result of many years.
“Most of the sentences in this country are relatively short. The window of opportunity that we have to make a change is very small, so we need to start from day one,” Oberg said. “Our strategy is to cover the whole range of problems, not just the one problem.”
In Sweden, prisoners are still regarded as people with needs; rehabilitation is also the heart of its penal system. The other difference between the UK and Sweden is the role of politicians.
The UK justice secretary, Chris Grayling, recently introduced measures that amp up punishment and take away from the rehabilitation side of corrections, according to Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust. These changes include uniforms, banning books sent to prisoners, and turning off cell lights around 10:30 p.m. in juvenile offender facilities.
“A politician who tried something like that in Sweden would be thrown out of office,” Oberg said. “It would be a breach of our constitution – in our system that is the forbidden area.
“When we exercise authority over individuals, a politician cannot interfere with the administration process. In reality, there is a dialogue – politicians will tell me and my colleagues what they expect and we will do our best to achieve those goals. We have a very clear division of labor between the government and public administration.”
Oberg continued to say that politicians can’t interfere “with the running of our business.”
Public opinion is another factor, and Oberg says there is a lot of anger toward criminals.
“But, regardless of what public opinion may be at any time, whatever you do in the justice sector, you have to take a long-term perspective. You cannot try something one day and change it to something else the next day – that would be completely useless. The system in our sector is set up to implement long-term strategies and stick to them.”
The country’s well-education population appreciated that almost all prisoners will return to society. They understand, Oberg explains, that the more the penal system can do within the small window of opportunity during a prisoner’s incarceration, the better it will be in the long run.
Oberg hopes that those in the UK running the penal system will take away helpful tips on how to get prisoners back into society in better shape than when they came in.