Great piece. I’d assign it if I was still teaching courses on Crime Policy
My only issue, while the age variable is mentioned, I think it explains more than the article implies.
If we look at age specific crime rates we can see that most crime is committed by younger people. The curve is quite steep until about age 24 (the last time I looked) and then drops for most crimes. Wherever there is reliable data cross culturally, we see the same basic pattern. While this is less clear for expressive crime, the modal category is still below 25. So if Norway, because it has relatively short sentences probably releases many more people in their 20’s, has this low a recidivism rate, something must be going on.
Maybe age is the most effective type of rehabilitation?
For those of us who do not like sentencing and prison policy in the US it is troubling that we see the uncomfortable fact that because of the age variable the longer people stay in prison, the less likely they are to commit serious violence crimes after being released. If the age of prisoners released in Norway is much lower than in the US, all other things being equal, we should expect a much higher recidivism rate.
I doubt this can be explained by what happens in prison. I'd rather look at what kinds of supports there are for inmates when they leave prison
Another difference is that in the US is perceived rehabilitation and behavior in prison can often impact the length of a sentence, while in the Scandinavian model perceived rehabilitation is more likely to impact the level of custody rather than the length of a sentence. Declining levels of custody and partial release may be making the transition back into society more effective places like Norway. There is evidence that for substance abuse offenders it appears that what happens in that transition period has a great impact on recidivism than what goes on on a prison setting.
I doubt what happens in prison determines the differences in recidivism rates. Because age explains so much about offense rates, comparing recidivism by age cohort would probably tell us more about how system compare and what works and what does not.
Fascinating article. This struck me, toward the end. "I have speculated that the low reconviction rate may even be indicative of under-policing." A quick search revealed the number of police per 100,000K citizens around 2016-2020 was as follows:
USA-278
Sweden-198
Norway-196
Denmark-196
Sweden-189
Finland-132
The USA has about 30% more police per 100K citizens than 4/5 Scandinavian countries which is a notable but not massive gap. The gap with Finland is huge, more than twice as many police per 100K citizens. Obviously, none of this adjust for officer quality or how much more active officers even are. There is also the issue that as a place becomes more criminal the authorities respond by hiring more police in responce to the crime.
If you consider the murder rate, which is usually the most reliable indicator, the US has almost 10 times as much crime as Norway. We don't have good data on the exact relationship between police and crime, but having only 30% more cops screams under-policing to me.
Yes. The point is about how many police there are relative to the level of serious crime, and not just on a per-capita level. The source I cited earlier is worth checking out. They show that the United States has the lowest number of police per homicide among developed countries analyzed.
I was just having a related discussion with somebody last week. I read an article about the Nordic prison model and their alleged success with rehabilitation, and I was suspicious. Looks like my suspicion was warranted.
This is a fantastic breakdown - you made the facts clear and easy to understand.
As a counterpoint, I think prison is about reducing crime, not as moral punishment, and I also think the way it reduces crime is mostly by keeping the crooks out of circulation.
punishment also has a symbolic element. This is not just retribution, it also expresses what and how we value things. How we puish offenses against different groups, against persons vs property etc.
The research is pretty clear that we get more prevention of expressive crimes from incapacitation than from deterrence.
Maths do not work that way. In USA incarceration rate is 550 and in Norway 55 (per 100k). So the percent of re-crime should not be calculated from the prison population.
"Rehabilitation" happens in Norway beforehand by not throwing petty thiefs in prison, and it is thus 15-fold success.
The vast majority of prisoners are hardened criminals, not petty thiefs, and many states (such as California) do not prosecute thefts below a certain dollar amount as felonies
An excellent intervention might be to build some extremely pleasant long term prisons for certain crimes and repeat offenders such that judges will not feel so bad about locking them up for good
I spent 5 years in a US prison then got deported to France. I was neither raped nor assaulted. Nor were most anyone else that I knew ever raped. And indeed rape was extremely rare in the Missouri system I was in. The occasional fight broke out, but they never lasted more than 1 or 2 minutes. The guards were always of top of all such situation always at break-neck speed. Far more common was simple thievery. In the same way that the Nordic prison system is made into some sort of mythical "prison paradise" so is the US prison system mythically demonized like some sort of hellish landscape were nothing but terror and chaos rules. Both are mostly total nonsense and nothing but distractions from the more complicated issues at the core.
Many people who commit crimes do so because they do not or cannot fit into society. Perhaps if this class of man were given the opportunity to live in a sort of "voluntary exile" in some remote cabin BEFORE starting a criminal lifestyle it would solve most problems.
Given than most crimes are committed by men in their late teens and early twenties, would a good intervention be holding prisoners until they hit a certain "low crime" age?
Great piece. I’d assign it if I was still teaching courses on Crime Policy
My only issue, while the age variable is mentioned, I think it explains more than the article implies.
If we look at age specific crime rates we can see that most crime is committed by younger people. The curve is quite steep until about age 24 (the last time I looked) and then drops for most crimes. Wherever there is reliable data cross culturally, we see the same basic pattern. While this is less clear for expressive crime, the modal category is still below 25. So if Norway, because it has relatively short sentences probably releases many more people in their 20’s, has this low a recidivism rate, something must be going on.
Maybe age is the most effective type of rehabilitation?
For those of us who do not like sentencing and prison policy in the US it is troubling that we see the uncomfortable fact that because of the age variable the longer people stay in prison, the less likely they are to commit serious violence crimes after being released. If the age of prisoners released in Norway is much lower than in the US, all other things being equal, we should expect a much higher recidivism rate.
I doubt this can be explained by what happens in prison. I'd rather look at what kinds of supports there are for inmates when they leave prison
Another difference is that in the US is perceived rehabilitation and behavior in prison can often impact the length of a sentence, while in the Scandinavian model perceived rehabilitation is more likely to impact the level of custody rather than the length of a sentence. Declining levels of custody and partial release may be making the transition back into society more effective places like Norway. There is evidence that for substance abuse offenders it appears that what happens in that transition period has a great impact on recidivism than what goes on on a prison setting.
I doubt what happens in prison determines the differences in recidivism rates. Because age explains so much about offense rates, comparing recidivism by age cohort would probably tell us more about how system compare and what works and what does not.
again a thought provoking article
Thanks for the comment. And you make some good points.
Fascinating article. This struck me, toward the end. "I have speculated that the low reconviction rate may even be indicative of under-policing." A quick search revealed the number of police per 100,000K citizens around 2016-2020 was as follows:
USA-278
Sweden-198
Norway-196
Denmark-196
Sweden-189
Finland-132
The USA has about 30% more police per 100K citizens than 4/5 Scandinavian countries which is a notable but not massive gap. The gap with Finland is huge, more than twice as many police per 100K citizens. Obviously, none of this adjust for officer quality or how much more active officers even are. There is also the issue that as a place becomes more criminal the authorities respond by hiring more police in responce to the crime.
If you consider the murder rate, which is usually the most reliable indicator, the US has almost 10 times as much crime as Norway. We don't have good data on the exact relationship between police and crime, but having only 30% more cops screams under-policing to me.
Yes. The point is about how many police there are relative to the level of serious crime, and not just on a per-capita level. The source I cited earlier is worth checking out. They show that the United States has the lowest number of police per homicide among developed countries analyzed.
https://direct.mit.edu/ajle/article/doi/10.1162/ajle_a_00030/112647
The better figure might be officers per criminal incident
I was just having a related discussion with somebody last week. I read an article about the Nordic prison model and their alleged success with rehabilitation, and I was suspicious. Looks like my suspicion was warranted.
This is a fantastic breakdown - you made the facts clear and easy to understand.
Only if you think that prison is about punishment can you interrupt the rationality of imprisonment - to keep the crooks out of circulation.
How does your conclusion follow your premise?
As a counterpoint, I think prison is about reducing crime, not as moral punishment, and I also think the way it reduces crime is mostly by keeping the crooks out of circulation.
punishment also has a symbolic element. This is not just retribution, it also expresses what and how we value things. How we puish offenses against different groups, against persons vs property etc.
The research is pretty clear that we get more prevention of expressive crimes from incapacitation than from deterrence.
Maths do not work that way. In USA incarceration rate is 550 and in Norway 55 (per 100k). So the percent of re-crime should not be calculated from the prison population.
"Rehabilitation" happens in Norway beforehand by not throwing petty thiefs in prison, and it is thus 15-fold success.
The vast majority of prisoners are hardened criminals, not petty thiefs, and many states (such as California) do not prosecute thefts below a certain dollar amount as felonies
An excellent intervention might be to build some extremely pleasant long term prisons for certain crimes and repeat offenders such that judges will not feel so bad about locking them up for good
In the US context, an extremely pleasant prison would mean something like a prison where the prisoners are neither raped nor assaulted.
I spent 5 years in a US prison then got deported to France. I was neither raped nor assaulted. Nor were most anyone else that I knew ever raped. And indeed rape was extremely rare in the Missouri system I was in. The occasional fight broke out, but they never lasted more than 1 or 2 minutes. The guards were always of top of all such situation always at break-neck speed. Far more common was simple thievery. In the same way that the Nordic prison system is made into some sort of mythical "prison paradise" so is the US prison system mythically demonized like some sort of hellish landscape were nothing but terror and chaos rules. Both are mostly total nonsense and nothing but distractions from the more complicated issues at the core.
Many people who commit crimes do so because they do not or cannot fit into society. Perhaps if this class of man were given the opportunity to live in a sort of "voluntary exile" in some remote cabin BEFORE starting a criminal lifestyle it would solve most problems.
Given than most crimes are committed by men in their late teens and early twenties, would a good intervention be holding prisoners until they hit a certain "low crime" age?