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Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

Sweden Closes Four Prisons as Number of Inmates Plummets

Author:     RICHARD ORANGE
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Monday 11 November 2013 11.33 EST
 Link: Sweden Closes Four Prisons as Number of Inmates Plummets
Stephan:   The American Gulag grows like tumor in the body of our society, and we are in nearly complete denial. Worse privatization is spreading in the incarceration industry and corporations are requiring 92 per cent occupancy. It is not that way in every country. In Sweden, for instance, things are going in the opposite, and healthier, direction. Why isn't this happening here?

MALMO, SWEDEN — Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets. Decline partly put down to strong focus on rehabilitation and more lenient sentences for some offences

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 year. Photograph: Paul Doyle/Alamy

Sweden has experienced such a sharp fall in the number of prison admissions in the past two years that it has decided to close down four prisons and a remand centre.

‘We have seen an out-of-the-ordinary decline in the number of inmates,’ said Nils Öberg, the head of Sweden’s prison and probation services. ‘Now we have the opportunity to close down a part of our infrastructure that we don’t need at this point of time.’

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 Ã…by, HÃ¥ja, BÃ¥tshagen, and Kristianstad, two of which will probably […]

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