Punitive Innovations in Global Dialogue: Tracing the Emergence of Scandinavian Punishment Practices in US Prisons

We analyze the American dialogue with an interest in Scandinavian (and Northern European) prison practices, identifying Scandinavian-inspired reforms in US prisons as a new and increasingly influential subfield of punishment studies. Broadly, Americans laud Scandinavian prisons for their normalization (people cooking for themselves and wearing their own clothes), humanization (high ratios of staff to incarcerated people, robust opportunities for maintaining social connections), and generally small scale (especially low rates of incarceration). We describe the twofold intellectual foundation for the current Scandinavian-inspired reforms in the United States: ( a ) Scandinavian punitive exceptionalism literature and its critics, contextualized in broader penal exceptionalism literature, and ( b ) a centuries-long transatlantic dialogue about ideal prison practices. We draw on public reports and research interviews (part of an ongoing evaluation of one Scandinavian-inspired reform project in Washington) to identify the specific aspects of Scandinavian prisons that attracted renewed American interest in the 2010s and the subsequent American effort to develop an infrastructure for systematic American engagement with Scandinavian correctional experts. We then situate this history in dialogue with concurrent theoretical developments in the academic prison literature (public health, dignity, and the agency of mid-level managers), mapping the current landscape of research, specifying gaps and challenges, and outlining key directions for further research.