Abstract
The attention of readers in the Anglosphere has regularly been drawn to – as an Economist headline in February 2013 puts it – ‘the next supermodel’. There is a consistent sense that there might be something to be learned from the Nordic countries, even if we seem perpetually to be on the verge of asking the question rather than actually progressing to finding out what the answer is. Are these relatively small, successful and cohesive societies ones which, perhaps through a strong commitment to equality, have genuinely come closer to solving all manner of social problems than the rest of the world? (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010) Such quasi-utopian claims are often met with skepticism in popular literature, either in the form of polemical claims of totalitarianism (Huntford, 1971; on which see Hale, 2006), or more critical if sympathetic accounts of what Nordic society is (allegedly) really like (e.g. Booth, 2014; Brown, 2008), but these cannot substitute for serious scholarly endeavor.
When such work is concerned, there are obvious practical limitations which hinder any efforts English-speaking lawyers and criminologists might make to learn from the Nordic countries. Criminological and (perhaps especially) legal literature is regularly published in languages that relatively few scholars outside of the Nordic region can read and relatively little primary source material is available in English. For that reason, the publication of Crime and Justice in Scandinavia, a lengthy volume of 11 essays canvassing various aspects of criminal justice in this region, is strongly to be welcomed. As the editors note in their introduction, the differences between criminal justice systems are a ‘natural laboratory’ (p. viii) for evaluating different approaches in criminal justice policy.
Although the book’s title refers to Scandinavia, which might be taken as a reference to only Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the authors make it clear at the outset (p. 1) that they are using that term interchangeably with the ‘Nordic countries’, and so the book is intended to cover Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. To that end, the book’s contributors include seventeen scholars drawn from all five countries (p. viii). In practice, providing a comprehensive overview of the Nordic countries is itself hampered by linguistic barriers: as Høigård explains in her contribution on ‘Policing the North’, ‘[t]he Norwegians, the Swedes, and the Danes can more or less easily understand each other, but Finnish is from a totally different linguistic family’ (p. 267). That limits the materials on which some researchers can draw, although the volume benefits from a healthy cohort of Finnish scholars.
Only 8 headings (referring to 3 of the 11 chapters) appear under the heading ‘Iceland’ in the index and the position of that country in the book is rather more marginal. Only one author (Jón Gunnar Bernburg, coauthor of ‘Delinquency Research in the Nordic Countries’) is from an Icelandic institution. Icelandic is not mutually intelligible with the ‘Scandinavian languages’ of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, and Iceland is in some chapters excluded ‘for linguistic reasons and because of limited availability of data’ (p. 201) or simply not mentioned at all. In some respects, this is unavoidable. While, for example, von Hofer’s chapter on ‘Punishment and Crime in Scandinavia, 1750–2008’ refers to the ‘unusually good’ statistical data on crime and punishment in the Nordic countries, this statement is made without reference to Iceland, which has been ‘long characterized by a lack of crime statistics’, inhibiting comparative work (Ólafsdóttir and Bragadóttir, 2006, p. 227; a paper which also provides a useful overview of criminal justice in Iceland). While one might quibble with the dust jacket claim that the volume provides a ‘comprehensive English language account of the Scandinavian systems’, unevenness in coverage is an inevitable feature of most attempts to assess the Nordic region as a whole (see e.g. Hilson, 2008, p. 8) and the coordinators of this volume have clearly sought to limit this. Space precludes a full discussion of all the chapters in this review, but the following account should give a flavor of the volume’s contents.
Lappi-Seppälä and Tonry’s opening chapter, ‘Crime, Criminal Justice, and Criminology in the Nordic Countries’, provides a valuable overview of the criminal justice systems in the Nordic region, highlighting features such as the role of the Nordic welfare model, low rates of imprisonment – not explicable simply by reference to low levels of crime – and crime prevention and social policy. One early observation is a striking reminder of the fact that Nordic penal approaches, characterized by low levels of imprisonment, are not immutable facts, and an illustration of the possibility of making radical changes in penal policy. Finnish reforms mean that, between 1960 and 1990, Finland moved from having the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe to one of the lowest rates.
Hanns von Hofer’s chapter on ‘Punishment and crime in Scandinavia, 1750–2008’ analyses statistical data – primarily Swedish – to argue that changing forms and patterns of punishment had ‘little or no effect on the long-term development of crime’ (p. 35). The one feature which von Hofer does identify as having had a significant effect is alcohol control policy (pp. 42 and 88), and the link between alcohol and crime features significantly elsewhere in the volume. One example illustrates well how Scandinavian levels of penalty should not be assumed to be trivial in scope: of a Swedish cohort born in 1960, ‘almost 40 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women…can expect to receive at least one penal sanction between the ages of 15 and 37 years’ (p. 73). Von Hofer notes that declines in prison populations in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden occurred for the main part before the welfare state became established (p. 89), an important caution against drawing oversimplistic linkages between the Nordic welfare model and penalty.
Janne Kivivuori and Martti Lehti’s chapter on ‘Homicide in Finland and Sweden’ again emphasizes the quality of the Nordic data sources, which are of considerable use as they attempt to explore the comparison between homicide rates in these two countries – a significant comparison because the relatively high rates of homicide in Finland are simply not ‘where they should be’ (p. 114) when mapped against a range of variables. The substantial difference between the Finnish and Swedish homicide rate cannot, they convincingly argue, be explained by connections with other felonies or Finland’s high rate of gun ownership (pp. 169–170) (contrary, incidentally, to the attempt of Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010, p. 136 to suggest a reason for Finland deviating from the apparent link between income inequality and homicide rates). Instead, alcohol plays a crucial role (p. 171), and ‘violence among economically inactive and seriously alcoholized males largely explains why Finland is an outlier in Nordic homicide comparisons’ (p. 183).
Lappi-Seppälä’s chapter on ‘Nordic Youth Justice’ traces Nordic approaches in this area to a Norwegian proposal in 1892 for a child welfare law as an ‘Appendix to the Criminal Law’ (p. 202), demonstrating the strong connections between criminal justice and child welfare. Over time, approaches shifted their focus from social protection to the best interests of the child, with Nordic youth prisons being abolished in the 1970s. A comparison both between the Nordic countries (excluding Iceland) and England and Wales (pp. 241–243) is striking, principally for the differences it evidences within the region – differences which might seem striking at first but which are rather less pronounced when compared to the far more punitive English and Welsh approach.
May-Len Skilbrei and Charlotta Holmström’s chapter on ‘Is There a Nordic Prostitution Regime?’ is particularly important given the extent to which ‘Nordic’ approaches in this area have been advocated elsewhere. As they explain, there are significant internal differences within the region despite overall convergence having led to a degree of external similarity. These differences need to be properly understood before the Nordic model(s) can provide a basis for reform elsewhere, and Skilbrei and Holmström’s mapping of the terrain is of considerable value in drawing out important intra-Nordic differences in this area.
The other chapters in the volume are Cecilie Høigård’s ‘Policing the North’, which provides both an overview of policing systems and research in the region, illustrated by fascinating examples drawn from research not otherwise available in English, not least Høigård’s own illuminating work on police responses to graffiti in Oslo from 1990–1999 (pp. 311–314). Ville Hinkkanen and Lappi-Seppälä discuss ‘Sentencing Theory, Policy, and Research in the Nordic Countries’, illustrating inter alia the relationship between legislative direction and judicial discretion, while Janne Kivivuori and Jón Gunnar Bernburg’s chapter on ‘Delinquency Research in the Nordic Countries’ draws on self-report data (a Nordic tradition dating back to 1959) to illustrate both changes in youth delinquency itself and research in this area.
Lars Korsell and Paul Larsson’s contribution, ‘Organized Crime the Nordic Way’, is a helpful overview of the topic, ranging from the definition of organized crime to its characteristics in the region and responses to it. It is followed by ‘The Emergence of the Crime Victim: Sweden in a Scandinavian Context’ by Henrik Tham, in collaboration with Anita Rönneling and Lise-Lotte Rytterbro. Sweden provides a particularly graphic illustration of the rise of victimology. The Swedish word for a victim of crime – brottsoffer – did not exist prior to 1970 (see also Tham, 2011), providing a striking starting point for demonstrating the development and growth of victims’ policies in recent decades. The volume concludes with Torkild Hovde Lyngstad and Torbjørn Skardhamar’s ‘Nordic Register Data and their Untapped Potential for Criminological Knowledge’, exploring the extent to which the extensive register data held administratively in the Nordic countries – and extensively used for research in other fields – could profitably be used by criminologists.
This is a stimulating volume, rich with insight into systems about which most of us working outside of the Nordic region know far less than, in an ideal world, we should. It is a worthy addition to the Crime and Justice series, and there is much to learn from it.