Blog
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Prison time is not of the essence
By Enes Al Weswasi After decades of declining numbers of offenders sentenced to prison in Sweden, the trend in recent years instead conveys the opposite: the number of inmates and the average sentence length is increasing. Consequently, the Swedish prison and probation Service predicts a 40% increase in prison capacity by 2030. The influx of…
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COVID and Crime Trends in Finland
By Matti Näsi It has been little over two years since the beginning of global Covid-19 pandemic. Although it does appear that we may be on the winning side of things, the consequences and disruptions caused by the pandemic were massive. In Finland, lockdown in the spring of 2020 meant significant restrictions on restaurants, social…
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Negotiating care, post-trafficking needs and gender in understanding help-seeking behaviour of trafficked victims: a case study of Finland and Sweden
By Polina Smiragina-Ingelström “[They are] not ideal victims of crime, especially when not trafficked for other reasons than sexual, so the social services don’t want to deal with them, they can’t relate to their experience as being victimizing. […] not everyone feels or understands that they are victims.” This concern was expressed by one of…
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The Idea of Crisis: Reflections from the 2022 NSfK Research Seminar
by Elin Jönsson As soon as I read the theme for this year’s NSfK Research Seminar – “Crime and Crisis in the North: Past, present and future” – I knew I had to apply. But I also knew that if I would be granted a spot at the seminar, my presentation would not fully adhere…
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Current controversies in Nordic intimate partner violence research
by Maiju Tanskanen Some repeated empirical findings and general criminological notions, such as the associations between various types of crime and the victim–offender overlap, remain relatively overlooked in Nordic intimate partner violence (IPV) research. Understanding the full ramifications of the phenomenon may require challenging some prevalent assumptions on the nature of IPV. In some research…
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Rape myths are prevalent among young Danes
by Sarah van Mastrigt 11,800 women are subjected to rape or attempted rape annually, according to Danish victim surveys. A new analysis from Aarhus University shows that among young people, and especially 16-20-year-old males, stereotypes and erroneous notions about rape abound. That’s a problem, as previous research suggests that rape myth acceptance can contribute to…
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What can social network analysis tell us about the role of region of birth in criminal collaboration?
by Hernan Mondani and Amir Rostami and Jerzy Sarnecki In this study, we use Swedish register data and social network analysis to uncover the role region of birth has for the choice of co-offenders in the period 1995-2015. The study of criminal organizing and criminal collaboration is considerably difficult. Criminals are actively trying to avoid…
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Blood stains, skulls & DNA – when evidence goes digital
by Mareile Kaufman and Maja Vestad Maja enters a burnt room. There is a body on the floor and blood patterns on the wall. Evidence everywhere: furniture, ceiling – ashes cover the crime scene. She sits down to examine the body and clicks a button to get closer. Conference participants with bulky goggles walk the…
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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…
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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…