Abstract
It’s August 2015 and I am sitting in East Jutland prison in Denmark in the middle of a focus group interview with long-term prisoners several of who have sentences running in double digits. This is one of the most modern high-security facilities in all of the Danish penal estate and the prisoners we talk to have generally been imprisoned for many years. I am together with two American research colleagues who are asking the prisoners about how they experience punishment in the Danish penal system.
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Notes
- 1.
I helped Keramet Reiter, Lori Sexton and Jennifer Sumner plan and conduct this research visit as part of their study of imprisonment in Denmark. They write about this and other prison visits in Denmark elsewhere in this volume.
- 2.
B and B means “Brev- og besøgskontrol” which translates into “control/surveillance of correspondence and visits.”
- 3.
Ole Hansen cited in “Remand imprisonment is a punishment before conviction”; in: Bladet Kriminalforsorgen, no. 8, June 2011, p. 9.
- 4.
Although bearing such a name the facility is not for police detention—it is a prison administered by the Danish Prison and Probation Service which happens to be physically located in the same building as the Police headquarters in Copenhagen.
- 5.
Along with even smaller isolation units at other prisons.
- 6.
Concerning Denmark see the Administration of Justice Act §762, para. 3 and §765. Regarding the Norwegian case, see Havre (2014, p. 12 ff).
- 7.
See for example the European Prison Rules (CoE, Committee of Ministers, Recommendation Rec(2006)2), rule 18.8a, which clearly state that states “need to detain (…) untried prisoners separately from sentenced prisoners” (concerning possible exceptions see rule 18.9). Concerning living conditions for Norwegian remand prisoners, see Ugelvik (2014).
- 8.
- 9.
The official 2015 statistics are currently not available, but the author has been supplied this information in an e-mail from the Danish Prison and Probation Services 26 January 2016.
- 10.
- 11.
The above is based on information gathered during an ongoing research project on remand imprisonment in Denmark (by Peter Scharff Smith and Janne Jakobsen), which is based on surveys, interviews (prisoners and staff) and other field work.
- 12.
Survey and interviews conducted 2013–15 by Peter Scharff Smith and Janne Jakobsen.
- 13.
The Ministry of Justice (Retsudvalget 2015–16, L80 endeligt svar på spørgsmål 4), 26 January 2016.
- 14.
Special rules and regimes can apply in certain cases involving terrorism—but that goes for a minority of prisoners.
- 15.
Human rights mechanisms have been more critical and more aware of some of the problems in this area.
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Smith, P.S. (2017). Punishment Without Conviction? Scandinavian Pre-trial Practices and the Power of the “Benevolent” State. In: Scharff Smith, P., Ugelvik, T. (eds) Scandinavian Penal History, Culture and Prison Practice. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58529-5_6
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