﻿Swedish prisons have long had a reputation around the world for being progressive. But are the country’s prisons a soft option? 
The head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, announced in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons are to be closed due to an “out of the ordinary” decline in prisoner numbers. 
Although there has been no fall in crime rates, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 6% drop in Sweden’s prisoner population, now a little over 4,500. A similar decrease is expected in 2013 and 2014. Oberg admitted to being puzzled by the unexpected dip, but expressed optimism that the reason was to do with how his prisons are run. “We certainly hope that the efforts we invest in rehabilitation and preventing relapse of crime has had an impact,” he said. 
“The modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,” says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden’s most secure jail, situated 130 miles west of Stockholm. However, he doesn’t think the system has gone soft. “When I joined, the focus was very much on humanity in prisons. Prisoners were treated well – maybe too well, some might say. But, after a number of high-profile escapes in 2004, we had to rebalance and place more emphasis on security.” 
Despite the hardening of attitudes toward prison security following the escape scandals, the Swedes still managed to maintain a broadly humane approach to sentencing, even of the most serious offenders: jail terms rarely exceed ten years; those who receive life imprisonment can still apply to the courts after a decade to have the sentence commuted to a fixed term, usually in the region of 18 to 25 years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of convicted criminals and continues to strive to minimize short-term prison sentences wherever possible by using community-based measures, which have been proven to be more effective at reducing reoffending.