Prison
numbers in Sweden, which have been falling by around 1% a year since
2004, dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2012 and are expected to do the
same again both this year and next year. (Photograph: Paul Doyle/Alamy)As
study after
study (after
study)
in the United States over the last several decades have shown a prison
population explosion that demands additional, larger, more expensive—and
increasingly privatized—prisons, the trend in Sweden might hold a
lesson on how to end the ever-expanding incarceration rate.
In
fact, instead of building new prisons or holding steady with the number
they have, the Swedish government—citing a rapid fall in demand—has now
ordered the closure of four prisons.
"We have seen an out-of-the-ordinary decline in the number of
inmates," Nils Öberg, the head of Sweden's prison and probation
services,
explained to the
Guardian. "Now we have the opportunity to close down a part of our infrastructure that we don't need at this point of time."
As the
Guardian reports:
Prison numbers in Sweden, which have been falling by around 1% a year
since 2004, dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2012 and are expected to do
the same again both this year and next, Öberg said.
As a result, the prison service has this year closed down prisons in
the towns of Åby, Håja, Båtshagen, and Kristianstad, two of which will
probably be sold and two of which will be passed for temporary use to
other government authorities.
Öberg said that while nobody knew for sure why prison numbers had
dropped so steeply, he hoped that Sweden's liberal prison approach, with
its strong focus on rehabilitating prisoners, had played a part.
Swedish authorities explain that this more "liberal" approach
includes both the rehabilitation cited, but also a new sentencing
structure that has reduced the terms given for drug offenses, theft, and
other less serious crimes.
At 112th in the world, Sweden has long been rated well in indexes
that calculate the percentage of its population the remains
incarcerated. In contrast, the United States has the most heavily-jailed
population in the world.
Again, from the
Guardian:
According to data collected by the International Centre for Prison
Studies, the five countries with the highest prison population are the
US, China, Russia, Brazil and India.
The US has a prison population of 2,239,751, equivalent to 716 people
per 100,000. China ranks second with 1,640,000 people behind bars, or
121 people per 100,000, while Russia's inmates are 681,600, amounting to
475 individuals per 100,000.
And, as the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
reported earlier this year,
the U.S. prison population continues to rise at an unprecedented rate,
both federally and across many states. Those rates lead to
over-crowding, growing costs, and increasingly unsafe institutions. As
an
Al-Jazeera investigation, following a report from the Government Accountability Office, found:
The overcrowded facilities have contributed to a multibillion dollar
demand for private prisons. The industry argues it is helping the
government save money. But others argue that for-profit prisons only
increase the incentive to incarcerate more people.
Almost half of those incarcerated in federal prisons are drug
offenders. Another 16 percent of inmates are in prison for offences
related to weapons, explosives and arson. Those convicted of immigration
violations make up 12 percent of the federal prison population.
And the impact of mass imprisonment spreads far beyond the prison walls.
Sociologists have found that the rise in incarceration rates reduce
social mobility and ensure both prisoners and their families remain
trapped in a cycle of poverty.
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