0000000000637916
AUTHOR
Kristian Mjåland
showing 6 related works from this author
Nordic penal exceptionalism: A comparative, empirical analysis
2022
Abstract Based on a survey administered in 13 prisons in England & Wales and Norway, as part of a research programme with explicitly comparative aims, this article seeks to address both the relative and absolute dimensions of the Nordic penal exceptionalism thesis. It outlines the consistently more positive results in Norway compared to England & Wales, explaining them primarily with reference to the former’s much higher quality and use of open prisons. At the same time, it emphasizes that, even in an unusually humane prison system, prisoners report considerable pain and frustration. The article also makes the case that comparative analysis should strive to be systematic, but that s…
Authoritarian exclusion and laissez‐faire inclusion: Comparing the punishment of men convicted of sex offenses in England & Wales and Norway*
2021
Abstract: Comparative penologists have described neoliberal and social democratic jurisdictions as though they exist at opposite ends of a continuum of inclusion and exclusion, and as though neoliberal states are inactive and social democratic states are invasive. This article, which is based on more than 129 interviews with men convicted of sex offenses in England & Wales and Norway, uses Cohen's work on inclusion and McNeill's typology of rehabilitative forms to complicate this simplistic binary. It argues that the punishment of men convicted of sex offenses in England & Wales was demanding but exclusionary; it imposed strict legal restrictions on these men during and after their imprison…
Comparing deep‐end confinement in England & Wales and Norway
2022
Extreme forms of custody represent the boundary points of state power. The configuration of the most restrictive corners of prison systems, and what goes on within them, is highly instructive in exposing the objectives, limits, and implications of state coercion at its most severe. Based on data collected in England & Wales and Norway, this article has two main aims. The first is to explore the degree to which “deep-end” confinement differs between jurisdictions with different penal philosophies. The second is to understand how the most extreme form of confinement in each jurisdiction differs from the more typical carceral experiences within each system and its overall penal ethos. Empirica…
'It's like a Sentence before the Sentence' - Exploring the Pains and Possibilities of Waiting for Imprisonment
2020
This article explores the implications of the ‘imprisonment queue’ in Norway. Based on interview data (N = 200), we show that while interviewees waiting to serve their sentences enjoy certain benefits such as being able to prepare for or negotiate the terms of their imprisonment, they also suffer from uncertainty and powerlessness. The suspension of their lives while they wait hinders them in pursuing their ground projects, things that really matter to them. This peculiar phenomenon has not received attention from prison scholars generally, as well as scholars writing on Nordic Exceptionalism specifically. This article addresses that gap and poses questions about the relative mildness of th…
Contrasts in freedom: Comparing the experiences of imprisonment in open and closed prisons in England and Wales and Norway
2021
Open prisons are portrayed as less harmful custodial institutions than closed prisons, and prison systems that rely more heavily on low security imprisonment are typically considered to have a more humane and less punitive approach to punishment. However, few studies have systematically compared the subjective experiences of prisoners held in open and closed prisons, and no study has yet compared the role and function of open prisons across jurisdictions. Drawing on a survey conducted with prisoners (N = 1082) in 13 prisons in England and Wales and Norway, we provide the first comparative analysis of experiences of imprisonment in closed and open prisons, conducted in countries with diverg…
Prison officer students’ perceptions of persons convicted of sexual crimes
2021
This study investigated the dimensionality of the Perception of Sex Offenders scale among prison officer students in Norway, and whether the students’ perceptions of this group of prisoners changed during their theoretical education and 1-year practical training. The target sample comprised a full cohort of freshman prison officer students, and two waves of data collection were conducted. The response rate was 94 percent ( n = 188) at time 1 (T1) and 64 percent ( n = 112) at time 2 (T2). The originally reported three-dimensional structure of the Perception of Sex Offenders scale was replicated in our sample. Moreover, the results supported our hypothesis that prison officer students were l…