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Prison population rates in many European countries have increased until the beginning of the 21st century. Prison overcrowding and questions around the ‘New Punitiveness’ have dominated the discourse. Recently a remarkable drop in prison population rates can be observed, in particular in Central and East European countries (for example, Russia, Bel...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... population rates in Europe -a divided continent A first look at the European landscape shows that prison population rates vary consider- ably (see Figure 1). Europe seems to be a divided continent, with high prison population rates in Central and Eastern Europe, low rates in Scandinavia and some continental European countries (including Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands), and medium size rates in other West European jurisdictions. ...
Context 2
... same general trend can be observed in the Baltic states, which tried to reduce their traditionally high prison population of more than 300-400 prisoners per 100,000, resulting in prison populations of 239 in Lithuania (−38 percent since 1999), 221 in Latvia (−45 percent since 1997) and 213 in Estonia (−37 percent since 2001) (see Figures 1 and 3). The total prison population rates are still about double the size of those in most West European countries, but far from those under the former Soviet-style incarceration policies. ...
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Citations
... Moreover, the prison rate is significantly higher in England and Wales than in Germany. Roughly speaking, this can be explained by a more moderate approach to sentencing in Germany which tends to avoid imprisonment (Boers et al., 2017;Dünkel, 2017). The judiciary seem reluctant to react to political rhetoric in favour of harsher sentences. ...
... Why do prison rates differ so much? Dünkel (2017) supported the view that European criminology is more focused on human rights and normative issues than US criminology, making it a more critical observer of penal policies and insisting 'that prison population rates are not fate, but made by human beings and certain policies. ' (p. ...
Despite the fact that they face the same problems, prison legislation differs between England and Germany. So do concepts and language. Can prison quality research travel under these circumstances? Are research questions and methodologies transferable from one legal culture into another? By using the example of a joint research project designed to transfer prison climate research from England and establish it in Germany and Switzerland we respond to the challenges of transferability and translatability. After examining the divergent legal cultures in England and Germany we present a prison climate research methodology developed by the Cambridge Prisons Research Centre (PRC). We then delineate the preparation, implementation and outcome of a pretest designed to show whether this cross-cultural research project can work. The concept of moral performance, and the methodology, seem to travel well while things are more complicated when it comes to translation.
... people in prisons, in Germany this increase can only be attributed to demographic changes. Moderate sentencing practice has remained stable in Germany with an average sentence length of 8.4 months (Dünkel, 2017). The decline of the German prison population as a whole can be explained by the drop in violent and sexual crimes and, in addition, there has been a drop in pre-trial detentions. ...
[free e-prints: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DNZDSRQJ8ABMETH5STI9/full?target=10.1080/08959420.2022.2031701]
Older people in prisons are a vulnerable group with complex health and social care needs. German prisons have started to adapt to demographic changes and exemplary support services for older people are available in a few prisons, but a lack of age-specific support is widespread. National standards are needed to provide predictable conditions of imprisonment for older people. In order to achieve the goal of reintegrating older people into society on their release, more support is needed to help them age successfully. Expertise on aging should be used and fostered more widely. Palliative care services need to be developed.
Key points
Exemplary social care services for older people exist in a few German prisons
National support standards are needed to provide equal conditions of imprisonment
Maintaining older prisoners’ life skills is key to their reintegration on release
Services could be improved by using and fostering expertise on aging more effectively
Palliative care services for older people need to be developed in German prisons
... Lengthy sentences would reduce offending, not only through incapacitation effects during imprisonment, but also by specific deterrence effects after release (see Von Hirsch et al., 2009). This belief has been a driving factor in the rising imprisonment rates and the associated criminal justice costs in recent decades, not only in the USA (e.g., Henrichson & Delaney, 2012;Latessa et al., 2020), but also in multiple Western European countries, such as Great Britain, Belgium, and Portugal (see Dünkel, 2017;Tak, 2008). This, in turn, resulted in what is referred to as the "prison paradox": while the inflow of new entries into prisons has steadily decreased, imprisonment levels have continued to rise due to harsher sentencing (Aebi et al., 2015). ...
... In summary, our findings confirm the belief that longer prison sentences reduce reoffending among individuals serving prison terms of up to 1 year. The relevance of these findings is emphasized by the continued rise in imprisonment levels and costs, due to harsher sentencing in many Western European countries (Dünkel, 2017;Tak, 2008), as well as the USA (Henrichson & Delaney, 2012;Latessa et al., 2020). We cautiously conclude that these substantial investments in longer prison sentences yield returns through the reduction of the number of property crimes committed after release and its societal costs, though the null effects on recidivism prevalence and recidivism incidence of violent and other crimes readily caution against unrealistic expectations in this respect. ...
Objectives
This study investigates the effects of the length of imprisonment on reoffending after release.
Methods
To account for endogeneity from omitted variables that influence both sentencing decisions and the likelihood to reoffend, this study uses variation in the proclivity to impose lengthier sentences across judges to which criminal cases are randomly assigned within district courts in the Netherlands. Using administrative data on all adult offenders convicted to short-term imprisonment (≤ 1 year) by a single-sitting judge in the Netherlands in 2012, we estimate multiple instrumental variable models.
Results
The results indicate that an increase in imprisonment length significantly reduces the amount of offenses committed after release, whereas we only find small and statistically non-significant estimates for the probability to recidivate.
Conclusions
We find evidence for a specific preventative effect of longer prison terms on the post-release reoffending frequency, but little evidence for desistance.
... Countries in which a large part of the prison population is serving long sentences would benefit most from initiating or expanding early release programs. For countries in which most prisoners serve short sentences, seeking noncustodial alternatives to imprisonment would be a more effective approach (Dünkel, 2017). In fact, such noncustodial alternatives were first developed in Western countries specifically on the assumption that even short prison spells may be "damaging" and therefore should be avoided wherever possible (Killias et al., 2000). ...
Noncustodial sanctions may present an attractive way to reduce the prison population rate, but only when noncustodial sanctions meet custodial ones in terms of deterring recidivism. Using administrative criminal records data of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 2012, this study examines the effects of short-term imprisonment versus noncustodial sanctions on crime. We employ an instrumental variables approach to account for selection processes and to produce consistent estimates of the effects of imprisonment. Findings indicate that being sentenced to prison rather than a noncustodial sanction increases the prevalence of recidivism by 10 percentage points and increases recidivism rates by 1.07 registered crimes during a follow-up period of three years. Treatment effect heterogeneity analyses show that the detrimental impact of imprisonment is most pronounced for first-time prisoners, and adult offenders, compared to repeat prisoners and young adult offenders.
... In twee derde (67 procent) van de gevallen betrof het zelfs een straf korter dan drie maanden. Ook in verschillende andere Europese landen wordt veelvuldig gebruik gemaakt van korte gevangenisstraffen (Dünkel, 2017). Tegen deze achtergrond hebben beleidsmakers en critici in het verleden gepleit voor het terugdringen van het aantal korte detenties. ...
... Deriving from this fact, it is surprising that only a handful of studies (e.g. Dünkel, 2017;Flander & Meško, 2016;Krajewski, 2014;Kury et al., 2003;Piacentini & Slade, 2015) focused on these local particularities, especially in the countries with socialist past, where the development of penal policy and practice has been fundamentally different than in the Western democratic countries (Slade & Kupatadze, 2017;Slade & Light, 2015). 1 The main obstacle, besides the language barrier, as most studies were written in native languages, is the availability and reliability of the data in countries with socialist past. For example, Jasiński (1996) highlighted that the number of registered offences in socialist countries was kept artificially low. ...
This paper focuses on a comprehensive study of penal policy in Slovenia in the last 70 years, providing an analysis of statistical data on crime, conviction, and prison populations. After a sharp political and penal repression in the first years after World War II, penal and prison policy began paving the way to a unique “welfare sanction system”, grounded in ideas of prisoners’ treatment. After democratic reforms in the early 1990s, the criminal legislation became harsher, but Slovenia managed to avoid the general punitive trends characterized by the era of penal state and culture of control. The authoritarian socialist regime at its final stage had supported the humanization of the penal system, and this trend continued in the first years of the democratic reforms in the 1990s, but it lost its momentum after 2000. In the following two decades, Slovenia experienced a continuous harshening of criminal law and sanctions on the one hand and an increasing prison population rate on the other. From 2014 onwards, however, there was a decrease in all segments of penal statistics. The findings of the study emphasize the exceptionalism of Slovenian penal policy, characterized by penal moderation, which is the product of the specific local historical, political, economic, and normative developments.
... primerjave kaznovalne naravnanosti med državami) se nanašajo na zaporske populacije, primarno na stopnje zaprtih oseb (število zaprtih oseb na 100.000 prebivalcev na specifičen dan v letu). Stopnje zaprtih oseb predstavljajo neposredni odraz politike oziroma prakse sodišč, saj odražajo velikost zaporske populacije, ki primarno sestoji iz števila sprejetih obsojencev v zapore, kar kaže na pripravljenost sodišč za izrekanje zapornih kazni in dolžine izrečene kazni in izpostavlja strogost sodišč pri izrekanju kazni zapora (Aebi in Kuhn, 2000;Dünkel, 2017;Krajewski, 2014). Kljub vsesplošni uporabi pa se stopnji zaprtih oseb, kot kazalniku kaznovanja, očitajo presplošnost, neodražanje pripravljenosti države, da pošlje posameznike v zapor, neupoštevanje dolžine kazni itd. ...
... Punitivnost lahko opredelimo tudi kot voljo ljudstva, da nadzoruje kriminaliteto s kaznovanjem (Kury et al., 2003). Velikost zaporske populacije, ki se meri v obliki stopenj zaprtih oseb, je neposredni odraz politike oziroma prakse kaznovanja sodišč, saj primarno temeljijo na številu sprejetih obsojencev, ki predstavljajo največji delež zaprtih oseb (pripravljenost sodišč izrekati zaporne kazni) in dolžini izrečene kazni (strogost sodišč pri izrekanju kazni zapora) (Aebi in Kuhn, 2000;Dünkel, 2017;Krajewski, 2014 Celostni pristop k analizi kazalnikov kaznovanja predstavlja velik izziv, saj združuje podatke o obsodbah oziroma obsojenih osebah in zaporskih populacijah. Celostna analiza stopenj obsojenih oseb in zaprtih oseb ne daje čiste slike o kaznovalni naravnanosti v posamezni državi, saj predpostavka, da večje število obsojenih oseb vodi v večje zaporske populacije (in obratno), velja le za nekatere evropske države: Estonija, Madžarska, Poljska, Slovenija, Anglija in Wales ter Škotska. ...
... Celostna analiza stopenj zaprtih oseb in fluktuacije zaprtih oseb kaže jasne povezave le v primeru nekaterih držav: Estonija, Finska, Madžarska in Poljska, deloma tudi Avstrija in Francija. Hkrati pa dolžina kazni v povezavi s stopnjami zaprtih oseb daje relativno jasno sliko kaznovalne naravnanosti za večino evropskih držav, kar potrjuje ugotovitve preteklih študij o vplivu časa, ki ga posameznik preživi v institucijah za prestajanje kazenskih sankcij na stopnjo zaprtih oseb (Aebi in Kuhn, 2000;Dünkel, 2017). Z drugimi besedami, stopnje zaprtih oseb temeljijo na številu zaprtih oseb na specifičen dan v letu, kar pomeni, da posamezniki, obsojeni na dolgo zaporno kazen, dalj časa ostajajo del zaporske statistike, kljub sprejemu novih obsojencev vsako leto. ...
V prispevku se osredotočamo na trende kriminalitete in kaznovanja v evropskih državah. Za potrebe študije smo analizirali podatke o kriminaliteti, obsojenih osebah in zaporskih populacijah v izbranih evropskih državah. Podatke smo pridobili iz Eurostatove podatkovne baze o kriminaliteti, Evropskih zbornikov o kriminalitetnih in pravosodnih statistikah (orig. European sourcebook on crime and criminal justice statistics) in letnih poročil Sveta Evrope o zaporskih populacijah – SPACE I (orig. Statistiques Pénales Annuelles du Conseil de l’Europe). Analiza trendov kriminalitete je pokazala, da se je kriminaliteta povečala v skoraj vseh evropskih državah, medtem ko je stopnja umorov upadla v večini evropskih držav, v drugih državah pa je stagnirala. Trendi kaznovanja kažejo, da se je stopnja obsojenih oseb povečala v številnih evropskih državah, medtem ko sta se stopnja zaprtih oseb in povprečna dolžina kazni povečali v večini evropskih držav. Število na novo sprejetih zaprtih oseb v zapore je upadlo v večini evropskih držav. Ugotovitve potrjujejo predhodne ugotovitve raziskav, da sta trenda kriminalitete in kaznovanja relativno neodvisna drug od drugega. V prispevku smo razpravljali tudi o primernosti kazalnikov, ki najbolje odražajo obseg kriminalitete in kaznovalno naravnanost v evropskih državah. Ugotovili smo, da so stopnja kriminalitete, stopnja zaprtih oseb in dolžina kazni najbolj primerni kazalniki, s katerimi je možno robustneje oceniti obseg kriminalitete in kaznovalno naravnanost kazenskega pravosodja v evropskih državah.
Ključne besede: kriminaliteta, kaznovanje, kazalniki kriminalitete in kaznovanja, stopnje zaprtih oseb, Evropa
... Crucially, and particularly in terms of our argument in this book, European jurisdictions differ around which acts they recognise as constituting rape (e.g. whether they include anal and oral penetration and whether the core requirement is the use of force or lack of consent) (Dünkel, 2017). Such differences have consequences for the levels of reported cases of rape in each jurisdiction. ...
... Feminist research on rape law in the last 20-30 years shows that European jurisdictions have been active in revising their penal codes, and have introduced new legislation to address sexual violence (Nevala, 2017;Siegel, 2020). Overall, we can see that the threshold for minimum punishment for sexual violence has increased in Western European jurisdictions (Dünkel, 2017). Embedded in European sexual politics around rape are two competing frames that encode sexual violence with meaning in normative terms. ...
This chapter focuses on the EU’s policy response to prostitution. It begins with an historical analysis of Europe’s prostitution regulatory regimes and moves to the contemporary moment. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of sex, bodies, and governmentality, the chapter begins the work of building a critical feminist analysis of prostitution as an aspect of European sexual politics. Then, the chapter considers Swedish feminist politics leading up to Swedish’s decision to introduce a sex purchase ban in 1999. Using Foucault’s theory, the chapter interrogates the problematics driving how feminists promote the so-called ‘Swedish model’. Following this, it examines how this approach has influenced feminist prostitution politics in other European jurisdictions. And finally, the chapter analyses events occurring at the EU level in this area and how these policy directions advance the EU project.
... Crucially, and particularly in terms of our argument in this book, European jurisdictions differ around which acts they recognise as constituting rape (e.g. whether they include anal and oral penetration and whether the core requirement is the use of force or lack of consent) (Dünkel, 2017). Such differences have consequences for the levels of reported cases of rape in each jurisdiction. ...
... Feminist research on rape law in the last 20-30 years shows that European jurisdictions have been active in revising their penal codes, and have introduced new legislation to address sexual violence (Nevala, 2017;Siegel, 2020). Overall, we can see that the threshold for minimum punishment for sexual violence has increased in Western European jurisdictions (Dünkel, 2017). Embedded in European sexual politics around rape are two competing frames that encode sexual violence with meaning in normative terms. ...
The Conclusion provides an overview of the book’s key arguments, and it provides a synopsis of our key findings. It reconsiders the role that feminism and feminist civil society actors play in law and policy framing and agenda setting at the EU. The chapter highlights the usefulness of our conceptual framework for those interested in sexual politics in various contexts.KeywordsFeminist analysisThe EUFeminist civil societyThe criminal lawThe future
... Crucially, and particularly in terms of our argument in this book, European jurisdictions differ around which acts they recognise as constituting rape (e.g. whether they include anal and oral penetration and whether the core requirement is the use of force or lack of consent) (Dünkel, 2017). Such differences have consequences for the levels of reported cases of rape in each jurisdiction. ...
... Feminist research on rape law in the last 20-30 years shows that European jurisdictions have been active in revising their penal codes, and have introduced new legislation to address sexual violence (Nevala, 2017;Siegel, 2020). Overall, we can see that the threshold for minimum punishment for sexual violence has increased in Western European jurisdictions (Dünkel, 2017). Embedded in European sexual politics around rape are two competing frames that encode sexual violence with meaning in normative terms. ...
This chapter focuses on the EU’s policy response to prostitution. It begins with an historical analysis of Europe’s prostitution regulatory regimes and moves to the contemporary moment. Drawing on Foucault’s theories of sex, bodies, and governmentality, the chapter begins the work of building a critical feminist analysis of prostitution as an aspect of European sexual politics. Then, the chapter considers Swedish feminist politics leading up to Swedish’s decision to introduce a sex purchase ban in 1999. Using Foucault’s theory, the chapter interrogates the problematics driving how feminists promote the so-called ‘Swedish model’. Following this, it examines how this approach has influenced feminist prostitution politics in other European jurisdictions. And finally, the chapter analyses events occurring at the EU level in this area and how these policy directions advance the EU project.KeywordsProstitutionRegimes of governanceThe French systemSwedenSex purchase banThe EU
