Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

[damnedifIknow]

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."

*berg 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.

"We certainly hope that the efforts we invest in rehabilitation and preventing relapse of crime has had an impact, but we don't think that this could explain the entire drop of 6%," he said.

In the opinion piece in Sweden's DN newspaper in which he announced the closures, Öberg said that Sweden needed to work even harder on rehabilitating prisoners, doing more to help them once they had returned to society.

One partial explanation for the sudden drop in admissions may be that Swedish courts have given more lenient sentences for drug offences following a ruling of the country's supreme court in 2011. According to Öberg, there were about 200 fewer people serving sentences for drug offences in Sweden last March than a year previously."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-prisons-number-inmates-plummets

[arcane1]

1. Rehabilitating prisoners? Closing prisons? Where's the money in that??

Silly Swedes.

[damnedifIknow]

3. Exactly

[theHandpuppet]

5. +1000

You nailed it.

[Blue_Tires]

11. +1

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, damnedifIknow.

[exboyfil]

4. Can't be Sweden is the most atheist

country in the world. Surely God would curse them with a high crime rate.

[theHandpuppet]

7. As one of the world's most progressive countries with regards to GLBT rights...

... I thought God was supposed to have smacked them down a long time ago. Imagine that.

[Quantess]

12. No, not with all the muslim immigrants. (no text)

[Blue Owl]

6. To hell with private prisons and the evil fucks who run them

n/t

[beachbum bob]

8. obvious the Swedes haven't seen the profit

for slave prison labor yet like they have here in the US

[jakeXT]

9. Another museum/hotel ?

http://langholmen.com/en/aktiviteter/blurb-1/the-prisonners-at-langholmen/

[eppur_se_muova]

10. I guess they closed the ones that were hardest to pronounce first ... nt

[bluedeathray]

13. Move along, no lessons to be learned here...

[annabanana]

14. Clearly, The Nanny State is TOUGH ON CRIME

A State that takes care of its citizens; sees to it they are fed enough, sheltered enough and healthy enough don't have massive problems with crime.

Whoda thunk that criminals are "created" when people are hungry, homeless and sick?