Contrasts in Punishment An explanation of Anglophone excess and
Nordic exceptionalism Published December 4th 2012 by Routledge –
272 pages Why do some modern societies punish their offenders
differently to others? Why are some more punitive and others
more tolerant in their approach to offending and how can these
differences be explained? Based on extensive historical analysis
and fieldwork in the penal systems of England, Australia, New
Zealand on the one hand, and Finland, Norway and Sweden on the
other, this book seeks to address these underlying questions.
The book argues that the penal differences that currently exist
between these two clusters of societies emanate from their early
nineteenth century social arrangements. The Anglophone societies
were dominated by exclusionary value systems in contrast to the
more inclusionary values of the Nordic. The development of their
penal programmes over this two hundred year period, including
the much earlier demise of the death penalty in the Nordic
countries and