Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian perspectives on Prisoners’ Access to Justice

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Justice, rights, othering and ethics in detention settings

Abstract

Comparative research is an eye-opener for surprising similarities and differences. This is indeed the experience from a comparative Nordic study on Access to Justice (AtJ) for prisoners. In this study, our focal points are release on parole and prison leave, two crucial matters for most prisoners.
A functional comparison of the legal regulation on these matters proved similarities and differences of the contents of the regulation, as well as how the regulation is organised. Even if correctional law does exist in all the countries, a common feature is that the legal regulation of prison life is divided in a number of legal sources. Crucial details are found in supplementary regulations, which are more complicated to find than parliamentary decided law. Moreover, a large amount of discretionary power is left for prison authorities when using the regulation in practice.
It is argued that this calls for high attention on prisoners’ AtJ: Firstly, and in line with how AtJ in its classic understanding was studied, as access to free legal advice to identify one’s legal rights as well as the rights to administrative review and/or appeal to the courts. Secondly, as a conceptual debate of the term justice – is the fact that prisoners most often are equal for the law a proof of justice? We argue that both contents and impact of the legal regulation should be included in the conceptualization of the term justice.

Authors

• Anette Storgaard, University of Aarhus, Denmark

• Berit Johnsen, Kriminalomsorgens høgskole og utdanningssenter KRUS

• Mia Kilpeläinen, University of Eastern Finland

• Birgitte Langset Storvik, University College of Norwegian Correctional Service