Hjørnestenene i den danske kriminalforsorg:

The principles of normalisation and openness are cornerstones of modern prison philosophy. Normalisation involves making prison life as similar as possible to normal outside life and openness counteracts the negative effects of the total institution (Rentzmann, 1996). Both normalisation and openness imply that it should be the norm to place a person in an open prison. He or she should only be placed in a closed prison if there is a concrete, real risk of escape or if the prisoner is considered dangerous. The question is: does the Danish prison system in the era of the millennium still pay tribute to these two cornerstones when it comes to prisoner placement and furloughs? Since sentence length and disciplinary offences can determine both prisoner placement and prison furloughs, the article also explores developments in determinate sentencing and disciplinary punishment. Based on statistics and legislation, the analysis reveals that the severity of penalties increased during the period 2002-2019, e.g., average sentence length increased, more prisoners were placed in closed prisons, fewer prison furloughs were permitted, and more prisoners were exposed to disciplinary punishment. These developments can be explained by laws and rules implemented to deal with gang-related crime andgang-connected prisoners, who make up about 10 percent of the total prison population. While these strict laws and rules are designed to discipline the few, they have influenced the many and undermined the basic principles of normalisation and openness in Danish prisons.

The Potential of Community Corrections to Reduce Mass Incarceration in the USA

Tough-on-crime policies and strategies, such as mandatory minimum and determinate sentencing laws and more severe punishments for juveniles, sex offenders, and drug offenders, have caused a substantial increase in the U.S. incarceration rate. Mass incarceration has generated several negative consequences, including racial bias and disparities, economic and social costs, and prison overcrowding. As such, the use of community corrections programs as an alternative form of sentencing has significantly increased. To effectively reduce crime and recidivism, community corrections programs must 1) utilize a validated risk and needs assessment when determining program placement; 2) provide participants with comprehensive, evidence-based services, including substance abuse and mental health treatment; 3) focus on modifying participants' behavior through treatment goal setting and the use of graduated incentives and sanctions; and 4) strive to hire and retain qualified staff, provide both initial and ongoing training, and monitor treatment staff with regular clinical supervision.

Going Berserk for Punishment

This chapter illustrates how California politicians went “berserk in terms of punishment” and helped balloon the prison system to a scale few could have imagined possible in the early 1970s. While determinate sentencing in itself does not ratchet up punishment, the ensuing battles in California over setting prison terms became a vehicle for the ascendance of the so-called “toughness imperative.” “Law-and-order” politicians in both parties used the displacement of the rehabilitative ideal to assert a new vision for the prison. They interpreted the upheaval in California's prisons as evidence that corporal containment and harsh, degrading punishment were the only viable response to street crime.

The Second Coming of Dignity

In this chapter, Jonathan Simon argues that the modern criminal system should adopt the value of dignity as its governing ideal. The chapter argues that the legality principle—once a primary engine for strengthening the criminal system’s democratic legitimacy—has exhausted its sociological and jurisprudential power. Surveying 150 years of criminal legal commitments, this chapter shows how the legality principle rose to prominence as a vehicle for reform and accountability, and then fell under pressure from mass incarceration and institutional racism. Accordingly, the legality principle should be supplemented with a dignity principle, “an increasingly prominent value in legal systems internationally since the middle of the 20th century.” Simon traces the development of various forms of dignity in Supreme Court jurisprudence, from police procedure to prison conditions, determinate sentencing, and mental health. The chapter concludes that “the great banner reading ‘nulla poena sine lege’ must now be, not lowered, but joined by another banner of ‘no crime and no punishment without respect for human dignity.’”

Jumping Bunnies and Legal Rules

In this chapter, Issa Kohler-Hausmann calls for a thicker understanding of the criminal system. She cautions against the framework of surprise, in which we waste precious time dissecting the “surprising” fact that “law in action” diverges from “law on the books.” Instead, she reminds us that law is a situated phenomenon, one that can never be fully explained or encompassed by its rules. To understand what law does, “we want to ask what exactly the frontline legal actors are doing with legal rules and how they interpolate them into an ongoing course of meaningful (although not necessarily beneficial) social action.” The chapter analyzes two exemplary contexts discussed in the first section: the determinate sentencing/mandatory minimum regime discussed by Rachel Barkow, and the lack of attention to individual guilt in low-level misdemeanor courts explored by Alexandra Natapoff. In each example, practices diverge from legal mandates in significant and revealing ways that can be fully grasped only by examining the actual operations, histories, and outcomes of the process.

Retributive Whisper: Communicative Elements in Parole

The aims of retributive or nonutilitarian sentencing are said to conflict with parole as part of a determinate sentencing framework. In this article, we claim that a nonutilitarian approach to punishment does not necessarily conflict with parole. In particular, by adopting core elements of Duff's framework of communicative sentencing, we argue that parole inherently holds a communicative meaning in the form of retributive whisper and can thus be reconciled with a nonutilitarian approach to punishment. In addition, we explore a way to enhance the communicative potential in the parole process and suggest that by recognizing and further incorporating the inherent communicative message in parole we can increase or maximize the board's communicative potential. Finally, we discuss some benefits that can emerge from adapting a communicative sentencing framework to the parole process.