This book draws on historical and cross-disciplinary studies to critically examine penal practices in Scandinavia. The Nordic countries are often hailed by international observers as model societies, with egalitarian welfare policies, low rates of poverty, humane social policies and human rights oriented internal agendas. This book, however, paints a much more nuanced picture of the welfare policies, ideologies and social control in strong centralistic states. Based on extensive new empirical data, leading Nordic and international scholars discuss the relationship between prison conditions in Scandinavia and Scandinavian social policy more generally, and argue that it is not always liberating and constructive to be embraced by a powerful welfare state. This book is essential reading for researchers of state punishment in Scandinavia, and it is highly relevant for anyone interested in the Nordic Model of social policy.

Peter Scharff Smith is Professor of Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway.
Thomas Ugelvik is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, Norway.

1. Punishment, Welfare and Prison History in Scandinavia; Peter Scharff Smith and Thomas Ugelvik.- 2. 'First We Build the Factory, then we Add the Institution'; Roddy Nilsson.- 3. Prisons of Labor; Victor Lund Shammas.- 4. The Rise of the Open Prisons and the Breakthrough of the Principle of Normalization in Denmark from the 1930s until Today; Peter Fransen.- 5. A Culture of Intervention; Robert Andersson.- 6. Punishment Without Conviction?; Peter Scharff Smith.- 7. Guarding, Guiding, Gate Opening; Terje Emil Fredwall.- 8. Treating Drug Abusers in Prison; Anders Bruhn, Odd Lindberg& Per Åke Nylander.- 9. Prison-drug Treatment as Welfare Service?; Torsten Kolind.- 10. The Development of Education in Norwegian Prisons; Torfinn Langelid.- 11. Exceptional Procedures?; Ingrid Lundeberg.- 12. Released to the Battlefield of the Danish Welfare State; Annette Olesen.- 13. Scandinavian Acceptionalism?; Gerhard Ploeg.- 14. Normalisation in Nordic Prisons; Hans Jørgen Engbo.- 15. Prison Food in Denmark; Linda Kjær Minke and Amy Smoyer.- 16. Being a Woman in Mixed Gender Prisons; Charlotte Mathiassen.- 17. The Limits of the Welfare state; Thomas Ugelvik.- 18. In Search of Norwegian Penal Exceptionalism; Tom Vander Beken.- 19. The View from Elsewhere; Malcolm Langford, Johan Karlsson Schaffer and Aled Dilwyn Fisher.- 20. Negotiating Imperfect Humanity in the Danish Penal System; Keramet Reiter, Lori Sexton, and Jennifer Sumner.- 21. Punishment and Welfare in Scandinavia; Peter Scharff Smith and Thomas Ugelvik