| When I lived in Sweden, I got to know a crimnal fairly well: my wife was
his parole officer. Saying that the Swedish system is "liberal" is reasonable
if you compare it to the American system of institutionalized rape and
degredation, but it is not liberal by comparison to the rest of Sweden.
The "clients" do see it as punishment -- make no doubt about it.
They would, I suspect, be amazed to see some of the jewels of our prison
society, such as the contrast between Marion (federal prison where the
clients are locked in their cages for 23 hours a day) and the "golf course
retreat" for the upper-classes with connections.
Martin.
|
| From: [email protected] (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Law Enforcement in Scandinavia
Date: 25 Sep 90 07:54:24 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Evald Nyhetsson)
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
There seems to be three major views on the purpose of punishments for
crimes:
- The first is that it should be sufficiently frightening to keep
people on the right side of the law out of pure fright.
- The second is that the purpose of the punishement is to keep the 'bad
guys' away from society to limit the damage they would otherwise do.
- The third is that the perpetrators should be reintroduced in the
society as responisble citizens through the use of education etc.
Currently, in Sweden, the third view has been the strongest, but there
are some signals that might indicate a change to view number two.
There is no death penalty in Sweden. The death penalty during peace
went long ago, while it was retained for a few crimes (high treason,
espionage etc) during war up to about 20 years ago (I think, <- big
disclaimer).
There is also the view here that persons who are considered insane and
commits a crime shouldn't be held responsible for their actions. (Which
is essentially right IMHO, but it has been carried to some ludicrous
extremes. One example should be the case where a woman wanted to get a
divorce, and when her husband found out he went berzerk and killed her.
He was declared insane and when he got out of the hospital he got to
inherit her, and he could even cash in her life-insurance. (Yes, this
is an actual case!))
A person that is considered insane and commits some kind of major crime
generally gets 'sluten v�rd' (closed care). The trouble is that there
has been several examples on that that care is neither care nor closed.
Sometimes, murderers has gotten leaves from the institutions after just
a few months, in several cases commiting new murders and rapes during
their leaves! (I could quote an actual, documented example here, but I
am by law prevented from doing so.) In other cases, persons commited to
closed care has managed to just walk out of the institutions without
anyone raising an eyebrow.
Another peculiarness of the Swedish system of justice is that jailtime
may be stacked! If, for example someone gets 4 years for grave
narcortics crime, 6 years for murder and 2 years for grave assault, the
jailterms won't be added but stacked, which results in 6 years in
this case. Normally, though, a person that murders several people will
get a harder punishemnts than someone who just murders one.
The 'life' penalty for murder is only used in very grave cases. And it
usually translates to 10-20 years in jale, then they will get parole
almost auto- matically. The only case in which this hasn't been true,
is with the terrorists that shot the Jugoslavian ambassador. At least
one of them sat much longer than 20 years.
(There is probably a whole lot of IMHO's missing from the article above
:-)
-bertil-
--
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
NET: [email protected]
VOICE: +46 31 723971 / +46 300 61004 "Don't worry,I've got Pilot-7"
SNAILMAIL: Box 154,S-43900 Onsala,SWEDEN (Famous last words)
|
| From: [email protected] (Stefan Farestam)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Prison sentences in Sweden
Date: 12 Oct 1993 16:37:48 GMT
Organization: C.E.R.F.A.C.S., Toulouse, France
Fredrik Ostman <[email protected]> writes:
> A couple of young bandits stopped
>a man on the highway because they didn't like that he had overtaken
>them. They got the man out of the car, and the youngest of them (older
>than 15 years, though) suddenly fired a gun. The man died, and the
>bandits were later arrested, and admitted everything. The killer
>claimed he had not brought the gun to kill anyone (no-one asked for any
>other reason). The killer was sentenced to one year in prison, with
>mandatory release after 6 months. He could get vacations from prison,
>without parole officer, during that time.
The Swedish policy of releasing prisoners after they have served half
of their sentence (supposedly on behalf of "good behaviour") has always
seemed somewhat bizarre to me. Wouldn't it be more normal to *always*
let people serve their full sentence, and double their sentence if
their behaviour warranted it? The sentences presently in use would
have to adjusted accordingly, of course... So, six months for a random
high road murder if you just happen to kill someone with an illegally
possessed gun, which in turn you just happen to carry around...
/Stefan
|
| From: [email protected]
To: "International Swedish Interest discussion list"
Subject: The Swedish lay assessor system
I think it would be much better [for the USA] to adopt the Swedish
system of "professional juries" whose credentials and impartiality more
readily assure that the legal facts are taken into consideration and
that the judicial system is fairly implemented.
This is how the Swedish legal system of "naemndemaen" works (according
to the Svenska Institutet Information Sheet on 'Law and Justice in
Sweden', March 1995):
"The bench of district courts in Sweden is in most criminal cases and
in some family law cases formed by one legally-trained judge and a
panel of lay assessors, or namndeman, who take part in the main
hearings. Lay assessors are elected for four year terms by local
representative councils from a roster of eligible local citizens. Most
of them are re-elected for consecutive terms...and these panels develop
considerable experience over a period of time. In criminal cases the
bench usually consists of one legally-trained judge as chairman and
three or five lay assessors, depending on the severity of the alleged
crime.
The participation of namndeman in the court proceedings, which has
medieval traditions in rural courts and has constituted a significant
element of democracy in Swedish public life, must not be confused with
the Anglo-American and Continental jury. They are not only concerned
with verdicts but also deliberate with the judge on points of law, such
as the sanctions to be imposed in criminal cases."
Henrik Nordstrom
Minneapolis, MN
|