Blog
-
The Scandinavian prison project: What happens when Scandinavian correctional principles and practices travel to the US?
By Synøve Nygaard Andersen The Scandinavian countries continually receive international attention for combining “exceptional” conditions of confinement with recidivism rates that are among the lowest in the world . Although the idea of Scandinavian (or Nordic) penal exceptionalism is highly contested – not least from within Scandinavian criminology itself – many countries still glance to…
-
The moral burden of rape reporting
by Maria Hansen, Kari Stefansen and May-Len Skilbrei Recent years have seen significant changes in the perception of what rape is and what victims should do in its aftermath. In Norway, an increasing number of rapes are being reported to the police, many of which are committed by acquaintances and taking place in contexts involving…
-
Live blogging legal trials in Denmark and Sweden
Live blogging from legal trials has become one of the most accessible and popular ways in which the public can gain direct insight into legal proceedings, particularly in countries where television cameras are denied entry into the courtroom such as Denmark and Sweden. Live blogs are descriptions of trials, written by journalists who sit in the…
-
The economic impact of crime prevention and rehabilitation of prison inmates
Public expenditure on crime prevention and rehabilitation programmes are typically only considered a cost to the public budgets in Denmark. Expenditure on such programmes can however also be considered an investment, if the programmes have beneficial effects that can be documented through scientific impact evaluations. Cost-benefit-models aim to show whether the beneficial effects of programmes…
-
Looking Back on the Nordic Criminology Blog 2021
What a year it has been! Earlier in 2021, we launched the Nordic Criminology Blog as a joint initiative of the Nordic Journal of Criminology (NJC) and the Nordic Research Council for Criminology (NSfK). We have published 19 blogposts from scholars engaging with criminology from a Nordic perspective. The Blog has been used to publish…
-
Nordic Noir – a criminological critique
In this short blogpost, Professors Keith Hayward (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Steve Hall (formerly of the University of Northumbria and the University of Teesside, UK)contextualise and reflect on their 2020 article ‘Through Scandinavia, darkly: a criminological critique of Nordic Noir’, which appeared in Volume 61 of the British Journal of Criminology.…
-
Criminology in the time of populism
By Jerzy Sarnecki, Senior professor of criminology Throughout my more than 45-year research career, I have strived for a simple (one might say positivistic) logic when it comes to the relationship between research and politics. We researchers provide politicians with facts. Based on this and other knowledge, politicians make the necessary decisions. In the vulgar attacks on…
-
Drug policy in Iceland: A paradigm shift in sight?
By Helgi Gunnlaugsson, Professor of Sociology, University of Iceland I always enjoy participating in the annual European criminology conference. This year only held online. A pity not being able to socialize on site with the colleagues yet easy to wander between different sessions. This year I gave a talk in a working group on European drug…
-
The public sense of justice in Scandinavia: A reply to a misinformed critique
Leif Petter Olaussen criticizes the Scandinavian study of the general sense of justice, published in European Journal of Criminology (Olaussen 2021). He did so already ten years ago in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab (Olaussen 2011 a, b). We answered the critique in the same issue (Balvig et al. 2011) and also in European Journal of…
-
Evaluating the Danish Youth Crime Board
By Tine Fuglsang and Signe Bechmann Hansen In 2018, the Danish Parliament passed a political reform addressing serious youth crime. As part of the reform, the Youth Crime Board (Ungdomskriminalitetsnævnet) was established in 2019. The objective of the Youth Crime Board is to prevent youth crime, by appointing targeted individual preventive actions for young individuals…