Vagn Greve* Sheep or Wolves

If severity is the solution the Soviet and the dictatorships in South America should have eradicated crime a long time ago.

K.J. Lång

Golden age or …

Denmark’s ‘golden age’ was the first half of the 1800s. It was a glorious crest from which we have descended. In the magic box we see , Grundtvig, Kierkegaard, Bournonville, Thorvaldsen, Rasmus Rask, H.C. Ørsted, and many others striving and questing. It was then that Anders Sandøe Ørsted wrote the thousands of pages that Danish jurists still use as a starting point when they want to analyze and understand a problem. P.A. Heiberg wrote against the death penalty; C.N. David created a humane prison system; and Grundtvig fought for freedom of expression. The period finished with a king who, without bloodshed, relinquished his sovereign power and granted the people democracy. It is an idyll for the hearts and mind, and is best described by sunset-warm images of a lovely land with wide beeches reflecting in blue waves and inhabited by noble, fair women and vigorous men. Or is it? A less romantic, but equally accurate magic box might portray the raggedy proletariat’s attack on the king’s funeral procession, the ruined citizens after the state’s bankruptcy. It might also portray the unheated, ice-cold dungeons with rotten straw and the hundreds of little match-selling girls; a city that reeked of sewage and children who were auctioned off to work for the lowest bidder. We could also imagine

* University of , Denmark. 1 �Q��������������������������������������������������������uoted and translated from P. O. Träskman, ���������������‘��������������Minnesord’, 86 Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab (1999) p. 1 et seq. [p. 3].

European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Vol. 13/4, 515–532, 2005 © Koninklijke Brill NV. Printed in the Netherlands. Sheep or Wolves a government that banished and imprisoned its critics; a land where even society’s most prominent supporters were subjected to censorship and writing prohibitions and fortunes amassed from slave trading and villainous drudgery? Which description ‘accurately’ captures the essential elements of that time, and of ours? What reflects the ‘true’ development? Historians and social scientists must, by necessity, pick and choose representative events, so that the images produced can be as ‘right’ as possible. Therein is nothing suspect. But are the right images? Thoughts like these passed through my head while listening to a plenary presenta- tion at a conference concerning developments in Nordic criminal justice policy. The speaker presented a picture of harmonious evolution characterized by continuous progress; one where politicians act rationally, humanely, and only on the basis of the latest research findings. Taken at face value it would seem that the Nordic countries were experiencing a virtual golden age in criminal justice policy. The picture seemed misleadingly rose-coloured to me, which I expressed during the debate. Both the Danish experience and my view of conditions in the other Nordic countries were in many ways quite different than that described by the speaker.

How do we evaluate criminal justice policies and trends in criminal justice policies?

The problem is difficult. Which criteria shall we apply when evaluating current criminal justice policies and their development? To a fundamentalist individual the answer is relatively easy. If and only if, the law is in agreement with the Holy Scriptures, it is valid. Fortunately, this is not how we argue in our countries. In the Nordic countries the justice systems are practical tools to influence society and interpersonal relationships, not God-given tools for a higher power. A more probable answer is that the justice system shall reduce suffering in society. The best justice system is that which results in crime being as low as possible, so that there are few victims. Crime statistics therefore become useful as a tool for compari- sons over time and between countries. There is, however, a stumbling-block; many

 Compare J. Engberg, Dansk guldalder eller oprøret i tugt[ -,] rasp- og forbedringshuset i 1817 [ or the insurrection in the rasp and hard labour house in 1817] (Copenhagen 1973).  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������R. Lahti, ‘���������������������������������������������������������������������������������Om�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� den nordiska kriminalpolitikens utveckling [About the Nordic criminal justice policies’ development]’, 87 Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab (2000) p. 177 et seq. ������In the printed version the author himself notices, that he ‘has considered the Nordic criminal justice policies’ development based on an idealized and optimistic view of the criminal justice policies’ … rationality’ (here translated).

European Journal of Crime, 516 2005 – 4 Criminal Law and Criminal Justice