The outlier

 Despite these preconceptions, at first glance the most pressing challenges facing the Swedish prison service look more similar to ours here in England and Wales than we might imagine. Like us, their prisons are full, with the population predicted to triple in the next ten years. Like us, there is a huge project underway to expand existing prisons and build new ones. Like us, there is strong public support for a tougher approach to crime, driven by the perception that immigration is largely to blame for an increase in the crime rate (specifically, gang, gun and terrorism offences). Like us, their incarceration rate per capita will soon become one of the highest in Europe. All of this, plus the same challenges in the recruitment and retention of prison officers, new generational tensions as Gen Z comes hurtling into the workforce, and a crumbling prison estate, and it all starts to feel very familiar.

With this in mind, you’d therefore expect places like Österåker – a medium security prison on the outskirts of Stockholm – to feel a lot like a busy local Cat B prison in England or Wales. Despite being built more than 50 years, it’s due to more than double in size in the next decade. There is pressure to fit more prisoners in cells, any with enough floor space are becoming double occupancy, and the cells we saw didn’t even have loos in them. Stereotypical Scandinavian utopia this is not.

But there is a crucial difference: two-thirds of the prisoners released from Österåker in the last three years haven’t reoffended. Why?

A culture of “better out”

Firstly, there is a clear vision focused on the concept of “better out”. This philosophy underpins everything. It provides a framework for decisions to be made, for culture to be set and to relentlessly focus on addressing what they call “criminal identity”. Rather than doing that by looking at trauma or engaging in deep therapy, they use more CBT and applied social learning theory. In practice, this looks like programmes and education for prisoners. Programmes to teach new habits and behaviours when responding to familiar problems, with the strong narrative that if you keep acting like you have always acted, you will only end up back in prison again.

Prisoners are expected to work one-on-one and in groups to reflect on past triggering experiences, in order to understand their criminal motivations, find new tools, and then practice using them through scripting and scenarios. These programmes are delivered by specially trained prison officers. Education is as much about creating a new identity and learning “the way” to do things, as it is about learning content. Personal education plans are typical, and a culture of self-motivation and self-development is embedded as prisoners follow their own educational journey linked to their own interests and motivations.

Secondly, the days are heavily structured and busy. Prisoners by and large don’t have time to cause trouble or be bored. They order and prepare their own meals with a kitchen on each unit (yes, there are knives, but they are chained to benches). Association time is spent surrounded by possible activities: men bake cakes, play monopoly, do jigsaw puzzles, battle at table tennis, listen to audio books. All recreation activities are structured, modelled and actively involve staff. None of it is random or unplanned. It’s excellent dynamic security at its best, which ultimately makes the prison safer for everybody.

Thirdly, segregation is seen as essential first step for a small proportion of prisoners who aren’t ready to fully engage yet, rather than a punishment of last resort. In the youth custody setting I visited, the boys had two rooms – a bedroom for sleeping at night, and a room with a sofa, television, and table and chairs for the daytime. Officers interacted with them in much the same way they would if they were on a wing; they ate meals with them, played console games, and did work to support them to get ready to reintegrate with the regime. They could also choose to mix with other prisoners for parts of the day.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for me given our focus at Unlocked, was the priority placed on effective staff culture. It seems self-evident, but frontline staff can only have the impact they need to if they are prioritised by leadership. All staff wear the same uniform (even governors) and there are no formal ranks, which creates a culture of openness around feedback and admitting mistakes. Shift patterns are completely consistent (you either do morning shifts, day shifts or night shifts), informed by the strong evidence around the damage to physical and mental health that constant unpredictability can have.

A novel approach to recruitment

One trickle-down effect of this culture is borne out in the unusual (to us, at least) way most join the service. Almost all the permanent staff I met were introduced to the role through a “summer officer” programme while they’re still studying at university! They complete a week or two of training and are never left completely alone on a unit, but they are expected to complete many of the jobs of a prison officer, in particular relationship building with prisoners. Most of the officers we met did this as a temporary summer job, fell in love with the role, and returned to it as a permanent career later on.

Not only is it a clever way of covering the inevitable increase in leave taken by officers over the long European summer holidays, it also introduces the potential new recruits to the structured support model (a bit like the Mentoring Prison Officer model that Unlocked offers to our participants) and specialist training courses they can expect if they join.

Takeaways

So, what were my big take aways from this trip? Firstly, there is heaps we can learn from the Swedish prison system around creating a culture of desistance and decency, even when the buildings are old and at capacity. Like Norway, Sweden went on a journey away from punitive officers to rehabilitative cultures from the late 80s and 90s onwards, and it means that their prisons make society safer. These prisoners are truly “better out”.

Secondly, busy prisoners are safe prisoners. We must find a way to get ourselves out of the “happiness-is-door-shaped” culture which has permeated our prisons since Covid. This is partly about prioritising prison training and development, partly about how we decide what is actually purposeful about a prisoner activity, and partly about the way we think about leadership and staff culture.

Finally, it reaffirmed to me that a good prison is ultimately not about the buildings, it is about what happens inside them and, of course, the staff that work there.