Professor Francis Pakes examines penal exceptionalism in 21st century Iceland

The article, "A more Nordic Norway? Examining penal exceptionalism in 21st century Iceland" by Francis Pakes, University of Portsmouth and Helgi Gunnlaugsson, University of Iceland was published in the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.

John Pratt (2008) put Nordic penal exceptionalism firmly on the criminological agenda describing penal practice in Norway, Sweden and Finland. This was then placed in sharp contrast with Anglophone penal excess in Pratt and Eriksson’s subsequent book (2011). Pratt travelled to the Nordic countries to establish why penal practice was restrained, positive and generally form an exception to penal trends worldwide. Ironically, the key ingredient of exceptionalism is in fact its semantic opposite, normalisation. It refers to efforts to maintain in prison life as state of normality, for prison life to be as ‘normal’ as possible in order to facilitate Nordic prisons’ main objective of preparing prisoners for a return to society. The common phrase used is that Nordic prisons are places of punishment but not places for punishment: the deprivation of liberty is in the fact the punishment whilst the stay in prison should facilitate a prisoner’s betterment or personal growth. Using Norway as a comparator, this article explores the Icelandic approach to prisons to see if it has something fresh to offer.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12244

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