Two separate posts, from https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-nordic-rehabilitative and https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/recidivism-in-norway
Introduction
It’s a well-documented fact that a small number of repeat-offending criminals are responsible for a large share of all crime. The primary reason why prisons effectively reduce crime is exactly because they prevent the crimes that these offenders would otherwise (had they not been incapacitated) commit over the duration of their imprisonment. The beneficial effect of incapacitation is empirically well-supported. For example, Barbarino & Mastrobuoni (2014) showed that collective pardons, which led to a large number of prisoners released in Italy, resulted in a large crime spike.
When prisoners are released, many of them reoffend. But reported recidivism rates differ markedly between countries. A widely held belief is that the Nordic countries are great bastions of rehabilitation: by focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment, they have managed to achieve remarkably low recidivism rates. Or so the story goes.
This notion, however, is largely a myth. At the very least, this Nordic rehabilitative success story is greatly exaggerated. The aim of this piece is to set the facts about recidivism straight. It will be shown that the American recidivism rate is much closer to that of the Nordic countries than often believed. Further, I will explain why cross-national comparisons of recidivism rates are often highly misleading due to differences in how recidivism is operationalized and measured, and that this accounts for much of the typically reported disparities. The recidivism figure cited for Norway—the country most often hailed as the great triumph in this regard—will be used as a case study to illustrate the problems that can arise.
It will become clear that it’s a mistake to attribute differences in recidivism rates to the effect of rehabilitation, as recidivism is strongly influenced by other external factors. What's more, there is little compelling evidence to suggest that prisons differ greatly in how effectively they rehabilitate, or that therapy is effective at reducing recidivism.
Recidivism in the United States
Before we can compare with other countries, we should establish the situation in America. The following figure gives the most recent summary of the American recidivism rates (Antenangeli & Durose, 2021). The figure reveals two things of utmost importance when we compare recidivism rates. First, recidivism rates depend enormously on the duration of the follow-up period under discussion. Less than 50% are rearrested within the first year, but more than 80% are within 10 years.
Most prisoners return to prison within 10 years of being released. Source: Antenangeli & Durose (2021).
Second, the rates also depend a lot on how “recidivism” is operationalized. How sensitive the “recidivism rate” is to definition is made even clearer in an earlier BJS report, and is illustrated below (Durose et al., 2014). According to different measures, the American 2-year recidivism figures were 40.7% (adjudication), 36.3% (conviction), 28.8% (incarceration), 16.9% (imprisonment), and 43.3% (return to prison), respectively.1
International recidivism
Why comparing countries is difficult — the Norwegian case
As reported by US NEWS, “The Norwegian prison system boasts a 20 percent recidivism rate – compared to the 76.6 percent recidivism rate in the U.S.” According to their reporting, this purported Norwegian rehabilitation success story inspired prison reforms in North Dakota to adopt Norwegian practices.
These kinds of comparisons are commonplace (BBC News, 2019; Browne, 2020), yet they are hugely misleading for the purpose of evaluating rehabilitation effectiveness. Recidivism rates are measured very differently depending on jurisdiction and context. This 20% vs 76.6% comparison is particularly egregious as the Norwegian figure is more narrowly defined and measured over a much shorter time frame. The American 76.6% figure above was based on rearrest within 5 years (Durose et al., 2014), whereas the Norwegian 20% figure described the number who received a new prison sentence or community sanction that became legally binding within 2 years (Kristoffersen, 2013). Both figures refer to prisoners released in the year 2005.
Of the American recidivism statistics mentioned in the previous section, the 28.8% incarceration figure is arguably the most comparable in definition to that of the 20% Norwegian figure.2 Thus, when the comparison is closer to apples-to-apples, the difference between Norway and the United States is far more modest.
Another challenge when comparing nations is that court proceedings can be lengthy before a conviction is finalized. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Norway), they operationalize recidivism as both an offense and conviction that has to occur within the follow-up period, whereas in other cases only the offense needs to occur within the period (Yukhnenko et al., 2020).
Beyond the issue of comparing equivalent definitions of recidivism, there are numerous relevant societal factors beyond prison rehabilitation efforts. The distribution of crime types will affect the composition of sentenced offenders and therefore the reoffending rate. In general, observed recidivism rates are lower for sexual and traffic crimes, high for property crimes, and in the middle for violent and drug crimes (Yukhnenko et al., 2023). Furthermore, differential willingness to use suspended sentences and/or probation indirectly affects the offending type composition among those who are imprisoned.
Kristoffersen (2013) has shown how relevant this can be in the Nordic context. In all of Europe, Norway has been unique in the extent to which they have given prison sentences for crimes like speeding in traffic.3 Traffic crimes have low reoffending rates in all the Nordic countries, so the imprisonment of these individuals at low risk of reoffending artificially brings down the reoffending rate among released prisoners. In contrast, (perhaps due to greater use of non-prison punishments) Norway had the smallest proportion of released offenders sentenced for thefts; and those sentenced for theft have the highest reoffending rates across the Nordic countries. If all traffic offenders had instead been on probation rather than in prison, that alone would bring the Norwegian recidivism figure from 20% to 25%. That is even closer to the 28.8% American reincarceration figure cited above. In short, who is imprisoned (and who instead receives fines, probation, or suspended sentences) can meaningfully change the recidivism rate of released prisoners through compositional effects alone. Much of the measured Nordic differences can be attributed to such compositional effects.
The base rate of crime and the size of the population who receive prison sentences in the country may also affect recidivism rates. Yukhnenko et al. (2023) provided evidence of this and they explain: “the more criminogenic a society is, the higher the recidivism rates (given other factors are held constant).” Thus, rather than reflecting rehabilitative differences, recidivism figures can also partly be ascribed to differences in the overall level of criminality. This is an important consideration because the United States has a far higher rate of serious violent crime than the Nordic countries.
There is yet another surprising but potentially relevant difference. Foreign prisoners make up a disproportionate fraction of Norwegian prisoners and, according to Mulgrew, about half of them are expected to be deported at the end of their sentence. But how many foreign convicts are deported in practice? According to Aftenposten, 794 foreign convicts were deported and were formally barred from re-entry in 2011. The following year 1,019 foreign convicts were deported. For context, the nationwide prison population in Norway is only about 3,000-4,000 (give or take) at any given time, so this number of deportees is not inconsequential. Deported individuals obviously cannot contribute to recidivism statistics any further, except if they manage to return despite being barred from re-entry, which can happen (and when they do, they are often discovered due to recidivism). Excluding deportees could plausibly move the recidivism rate a few additional percentage points.4
In summary, comparing recidivism rates between countries is very difficult and can easily be misinterpreted. The differences between the United States and Norway is much smaller when comparisons are closer to apples-to-apples, though a difference favoring Norway still exists. But even this remaining difference cannot be assumed to be due to rehabilitation differences, because the societies differ in many other ways. As noted, when relevant confounders are controlled for, the difference becomes even smaller. And this is unlikely to be an exhaustive set of relevant confounding variables.
Comparing the Nordic countries with the United States
Despite all the caveats mentioned about comparing international recidivism rates, it would unsatisfactory if we didn’t compare the Nordic and American recidivism rates as best as we can.
For available data that gets us the closest to an apples-to-apples comparison, I lean on recent Nordic data provided by Kristoffersen (2022) and American data from Durose & Antenangeli (July, 2021). The recidivism measure used is the 2-year reconviction rate for released prisoners.5 The comparative results are displayed in the figure below. Because I can anticipate that some would ask the question, I have also included the American recidivism rate for white individuals only.
The first thing to notice is that Nordic recidivism rates are by no means exceptionally low, contrary to idealistic notions many have about the region. In Denmark, Finland and Sweden, about 1 in 3 is reconvicted within 2 years. Even in Norway, about 1 in 5 are reconvicted, and a much larger share rearrested within a longer time frame (Andersen & Skardhamar, 2014). As already discussed, much of Norway’s observed advantage over the other Nordic countries is likely attributable to non-rehabilitation factors.6
Though the United States recidivism rate is higher than that of the Nordic countries, most of the differences are exceptionally small. It does not stand out as an outlier. This is even more remarkable when one considers that the United States is a huge outlier (among developed countries) in terms of rate of serious violent crime and overall imprisonment rate. If anything, we ought to seriously consider the possibility that the low reconviction rate in America is indicative of under-policing. Yet another common misconception is that America is over-policed. On the contrary, the reality is that the number of police is very low relative to its level of serious crime (Lewis & Usmani, 2022).
The effectiveness of rehabilitation practices
The claim that the Nordic countries are far more effective at rehabilitation is typically based on their recidivism rates supposedly being remarkably low. We now know that this isn’t even the case. But even the small remaining differences cannot simply be attributed to differences in rehabilitation. This is because recidivism rates are affected by many factors outside the control of the prison itself. In fact, differences in recidivism rates across prisons probably have much more to do with the composition of prisoners and the wider socio-cultural and demographic context than to the prisons themselves.
A study by Yu et al. (2022) is particularly illustrative in this regard. They looked at how recidivism rates differed between prisons across Sweden. The prisons differed greatly in their recidivism rates, so a naïve comparison would have you believe that they rehabilitated to very different extents. But, to test whether the prisons themselves were responsible for the recidivism rate differences, they followed 37,891 individuals released from prisons and compared the same prisoners when they were released from a different prison. In these within-person comparisons, the large prison gaps in recidivism rates became very small and non-significant. No prison was substantially more criminogenic or “rehabilitative” than the other. This is further confirmation that large recidivism differences can be a mere manifestation of prisoner composition, and not caused by the prisons themselves. It gives us even greater reason to suspect that external factors might play the dominant role in the measured differences between countries.
Therapy
The rehabilitation vision (including prison abolitionists) is very often accompanied by advocacy of therapy and social work as intervention. It is suggested that therapy would solve the “root causes” of crime, and thus dramatically reduce recidivism rates. Prison abolitionists sometimes argue that therapy could entirely replace prisons. Are these beliefs well founded?
Beaudry et al. (2021) conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of psychological interventions. They found that there was substantial publication bias in favor of the interventions. After accounting for this, by excluding the smallest studies (<50 participants in intervention group), they found that therapy did not significantly reduce recidivism.
Similarly, Olsson et al. (2021) conducted a systematic review of psychosocial interventions targeting juvenile criminals. They found no noninstitutional psychosocial intervention that significantly reduced recidivism among juveniles.
The evidence is thus strongly opposed to the idea that therapy can greatly alleviate overall recidivism rates. Future research with much more statistical power may possibly find that therapy has a small beneficial effect. It is also possible therapy can be effective for addressing some risk factors of crime (e.g., substance abuse), but that would still be consistent with the effect being small in the aggregate. Because there is publication bias in favor of therapy’s effectiveness, future research should preferably also be preregistered. Indeed, publication bias is a serious concern more generally. Any research aiming to show that an intervention is effective needs to meet a high bar of evidence before it can be considered fully convincing.
What does matter for recidivism?
There are some correlates of recidivism which are fairly obvious, such as age and sex. This is illustrated for Danish data below.
Recividism rate for men (“mænd”) and women (“kvinder”) by age group in Denmark. The recidivism rate falls substantially as people age. Source: Statistics Denmark (2023).
But we want to find the causal risk factors that are most amenable to intervention. Age of released prisoners can technically be influenced by sentencing length. Longer prison sentences—apart from the much more relevant effect of a greater incapacitation period—have the small additional benefit of an aging effect. Thus, this is technically a way to reduce recidivism, but it is surely an answer many would find unsatisfactory.
The evidence discussed so far is disappointing for achieving the dream of complete rehabilitation, or anything close to it. But it would be incorrect to suggest that there are no known beneficial interventions.
Perhaps the most convincing example of a clear beneficial effect on recidivism is medication for psychiatric disorders. For example, medication for ADHD and psychotic disorders has been shown to reduce offending in individuals with the relevant diagnoses (Lichtenstein et al., 2012; Sariaslan et al., 2022; Ceraso et al., 2020).
Unfortunately, the reality is that there is no known intervention which can be broadly applied to great effect, ultimately producing a large effect at the national level. If such interventions were known, they would be used. There are, of course, other hypothesized interventions and studies of their effectiveness. But the evidence is often weak and suffers from publication bias. Well-evidenced and powerful interventions are usually only applicable in specific circumstances (like medication for psychiatric disorders), and would thus only have modest effects on national recidivism rates.
Conclusion
The idea that the Nordic countries have achieved remarkably low recidivism rates is a misconception. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, about 1 in 3 of released prisoners will commit a crime leading to a new conviction already within 2 years of being released. Over a longer period, the majority will at least be rearrested. Even in the best example, Norway, about 1 in 5 will be be convicted for a new crime committed within just 2 years after being released. However much the Nordics focus on rehabilitation, there is clearly a large group of people for whom they cannot prevent reoffending.
How does the United States look in comparison? Comparing recidivism rates between countries is challenging, and when large differences are observed, one should be suspicious that they are not equivalently measured. If we make the comparison as close to apples-to-apples as we can, the American recidivism rate is very close to that of Denmark, Sweden and Finland. When one considers how much more criminal the United States, their recidivism rate is, if anything, surprisingly low. I have speculated that the low reconviction rate may even be indicative of under-policing.
Of the countries considered, Norway has the lowest measured recidivism rate. While it is possible Norway’s more rehabilitative approach contributes meaningfully to that, I have argued that much of the disparity can likely be explained by other factors. I have discussed factors relevant specifically to the Norwegian case. But I have also reviewed more general evidence on what influences recidivism rates. The evidence suggests that variation in recidivism rates both between and within countries are greatly affected by factors beyond the prisons. Therefore, it would be a big mistake to conclude that Norway rehabilitates much better simply on the basis of measured recidivism rates.
The things that do reduce recidivism are also often not the same strategies that rehabilitation proponents advocate. Therapy, probably the most commonly suggested intervention these days, is not particularly effective at reducing overall recidivism rates. Interventions that work are likely to be more contextual, and it is unlikely that any intervention, broadly applied, can drastically lower recidivism rates. To think that any intervention(s) could replace prisons any time soon is fantastical.
Ragnar Kristoffersen — one of the principal researchers involved in the comparative research on Nordic recidivism rates — makes an important point. We must distinguish between the ethical question and the descriptive question; that is, (a) how we think prisoners ought to be treated, versus (b) what effectively reduces recidivism in practice. Regarding the idea that “treating people nicely will keep them from committing new crimes,” he says that there is “very poor evidence” (Benko, 2015). Yet he still believes we should do so out of ethical considerations.
Footnotes:
1
The definition of each recidivism measure is given in Durose et al. (2014), p. 14-15. “Return to prison” includes when “when the offender was returned to prison without a new conviction because of a technical violation of his or her release, such as failing a drug test or missing an appointment with a parole officer.”
2
The definition used that led to the Norwegian 20% recidivism figure was: “Relapse is defined as a new prison sentence or community sanction that became legally binding within two years of release from prison or from commencement of the community sanction in 2005. Put differently, suspended sentences and fines are excluded from the relapse definition. Secondly, at least one act of reoffending must have taken place after release from prison or after starting a community sanction in 2005” (Kristoffersen, 2013). The definition used for “incarceration” by Durose et al. (2014) is “Classifies persons as a recidivist when an arrest resulted in a prison or jail sentence.”
3
According to SpeedingEurope, “Norway is the only European country who regularly condemns its citizens to prison sentences for speeds that seem perfectly natural for citizens of other European countries. 150 km/h on a motor road under perfect conditions is enough to land you in jail for at least 18 days – unconditionally.”
4
As far as I am aware, there is no publicly available data that allows us to calculate exactly what the recidivism rate is when deportees are excluded. We can, however, make some very rough estimates to get a sense of a realistic range of effect it could have in practice. Suppose that one fifth to two fifths of those ever imprisoned are foreigners, that one third to two thirds of foreign prisoners are deported, and finally that half to three quarters of deported criminals do not return to the country (and thus cannot recidivate). Then the recidivism rate, excluding deportees, could increase by a factor of 1.03 to 1.25. In other words, the 20% figure could move to 20.7%-25%. And excluding both deportees and traffic crime, the 25% figure could move to 25.9%-31.3%.
5
Kristoffersen (2022) provides recidivism rates from the Nordic countries for prisoners released 2016-2020. Figures are given in section 2.11. For this comparative research, scholars have gone through great efforts to use as comparable definitions as possible. Data on reconviction within a 2-year time frame is provided. To reduce year-to-year noise, I have used the aggregate values across the entire 2016-2020 period.
For American recidivism data, I rely on the BJS analysis by Durose & Antenangeli (July, 2021), which follows prisoners released in 2012 across 34 states for up to 5 years. The 2-year reconviction rate can be found in Table 7.
6
In addition to the already discussed facts about Norway, Kristoffersen (2022) notes that: “A national police reform reducing the number of organizational police unities was introduced in 2017, followed by fewer prison sentences. This may have influenced the reconviction rate as well.” The reconviction rate went from 23.0% (2014-2016) to 18.2% (2017-2018).
Second article:
Introduction
In my previous piece, I dealt with a number of common misconceptions about Nordic recidivism and rehabilitation. I showed that, contrary to widespread belief, the American recidivism rate is not much higher than that of Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
Norway, however, did have noticeably lower recidivism rate (see below). I argued that a substantial amount of its measured advantage over the other Nordic countries likely cannot be attributed to superior rehabilitation. Still, Norwegian recidivism in particular is worthy of additional investigation.
In a 2019 BBC article, the Norwegian prison governor Are Høidal recalls the ‘80s non-rehabilitative “macho culture.” He says that back then the recidivism rate was “around 60-70%, like in the US.” But following a series of rehabilitation reforms in the early '90s, “recidivism in Norway has fallen to only 20% after two years and about 25% after five years. So this works!” Laroia (2020) repeats these points, writing “After reforming its prison system to one based on rehabilitation and support, though, the efficacy of its prisons in reducing crime skyrocketed.” The Wikipedia page for Incarceration in Norway writes the same, citing the mentioned sources. Many make similar claims. Bleicher (2021), writing about pre-reform recidivism rates, says: “As many as 70% of Norwegians released from prison reoffended within two years.”
This is one of the central arguments used in favor of Norwegian rehabilitation efficacy: while Norway used to have very high recidivism rates, it dramatically fell following rehabilitation reforms. There is just one problem: this story is false. Norway did not have dramatically high recidivism rates prior to these rehabilitation reforms. In fact, their recidivism rates in the ‘60s were lower than they are today.
In this piece, I will address these claims about Norwegian recidivism. I will provide more comprehensive and accurate data tracking recidivism trends. And lastly, I will give a more plausible and empirically supported account of what underlies these trends.
Content
Introduction
Norwegian recidivism rate trends
Explaining Norwegian recidivism trends
Explaining Norway’s low recidivism rate
Conclusion
Appendix
Norwegian recidivism rate trends
I have been unable to find any sources with quantitative analyses that support the notion that Norway used to have a recidivism rate of 60-70% prior to the ‘90s. It seems like these writers all just cite each other, but it leads to nowhere conclusive. The Wikipedia article cites Laroia (2020), and Laroia in turn cites the BBC article. But the BBC article has no reference other than the prison governor's assertion. Even if prison governor’s assertion was completely truthful and based on a rigorous analysis, we would still need to check the original analysis. As I have stressed in the previous article, recidivism figures are highly sensitive to operationalization and measurement. Thus, the claim that the recidivism rate “used to be 60-70%” is virtually meaningless without further clarification of what exactly is being measured.
I have found multiple sources reporting recidivism rates for years prior to the rehabilitation reforms. Kristoffersen (2006) reports a recidivism rate of 51% for charged offenders in 1987. And “in similar examinations in 1951, 1957, and 1962 recidivism rates were 28%, 32% and 37%, respectively.” However, these figures use a much more expansive definition of recidivism than the one being used for the regularly cited 20% figure. They use a 5-year follow-up period, and reoffending is defined much more broadly than reimprisonment. The modern 20% figure is proportion of released prisoners who received a new prison sentence or community sanction that became legally binding within 2 years (Kristoffersen, 2013). This means that even if you use a vastly broader definition of recidivism than the one used for the 20% figure, it still doesn't reach the claimed 60-70%. It is therefore clearly false that recidivism transitioned from 60-70% to 20% (when equivalent definitions are used for both figures). If you use a narrow definition of recidivism, recidivism was certainly much lower than 60-70% before rehabilitation reforms. But if you use a broader definition of recidivism, recidivism is much higher than 20% today. Either way you look at the claim, it is incorrect.
Let us look more systematically at the trends in recidivism. The data I have collected is described in more detail in the appendix. The following figure displays the fraction of charged offenders who reoffend within a given time frame. The different colors reflect somewhat different definitions of recidivism — in terms of follow-up duration or which group of offenders is being tracked (whether misdemeanor offenders are included or not). It spans from long before rehabilitation reforms to the most recent figures (2017 offenders are the most recent available data, given that 5 years of follow-up to 2022 is used).
In the period from 1950 to present, recidivism rates were at their lowest in the ‘50s. They started growing during the ‘50s and ‘60s, then they were roughly stable for some time, but started growing during the ‘90s once again. In fact, you can find articles from the ‘90s lamenting the growing recidivism rates and how they used to be much better in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The recidivism rates then peaked in the early 2000s, and have since fallen.
The improvements since the early 2000s look impressive, but, even in the most recent years, the recidivism rate remains higher than it was prior to the ‘70s — long before rehabilitation reforms. In other words: low Norwegian recidivism rates precede rehabilitation reforms entirely.
If you’re confused why the most recent recidivism statistics are much higher than the regularly cited 20% figure, that is again because the 20% figure uses a more narrow definition of recidivism. What’s important is each time series (each color curve) is based on a fixed definition and can thus be compared across years.
Explaining Norwegian recidivism trends
Some may be tempted to wonder how Norway rehabilitated so effectively in the ‘50s. While this would be a funny thought, this line of thinking is obviously mistaken. As I stressed in my previous piece, recidivism rates are highly affected by things external to rehabilitation occurring within prisons. That’s why one shouldn’t infer rehabilitation effectiveness on the basis of low recidivism rates.
I propose a very simple explanation for the evolution of the Norwegian recidivism rate: the trend in recidivism rates mirrors the trend in overall crime. The rise since the ‘50s, the peak between the late ‘90s to the early 2000s, and the downward trend since the early 2000s — all of these trends in the recidivism rates are mirrored in overall crime.
Figure from Lappi-Seppälä (2012) on the basis of Hofer et al. (2012).
The figure shows that such crime trends occurred across the Nordic countries in general. And it’s not just the Nordic countries. For example, Morgan et al. (2020) compared homicide rate trends: “Australia and New Zealand, most Western European nations, all the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and Scotland also have homicide rates that rise sharply from the 1960s and peak between 1990 and 2005.”
But not all crimes have fallen equally. The majority of the crime reduction can be attributed to less theft — a crime with high recidivism rate — and this is supported by victimization surveys. Some other crimes have seen a more moderate drop in reports (e.g., traffic offenses), and some have even seen a slight increase in reports (e.g., violence and sexual offenses).
As a result, the composition of reported offense types has shifted. From 2003 to 2018, property theft transitioned from being 45% of reported offenses to just 29%. This compositional shift is more clearly illustrated below.
The total number of offenses reported each year in Norway, by offense type. Note that the crime rate has fallen more than illustrated, as the population has grown over the time period. Source: Statistics Norway
This is important because recidivism rates differ greatly by offense type. As the overall crime rate drops and the distribution of offense types shifts, it will affect recidivism rates. Because theft has the highest recidivism rate (see below), a drop in theft will therefore impact the recidivism rate even more than drops in other offense types would.
In summary, reduction in overall crime rates, as well as changes in offense type composition, have resulted in a reduction in the recidivism rate since the early 2000s.
Explaining Norway’s low recidivism rate
The fact that Norway used to have a very low recidivism — in fact, lower than today — long before rehabilitation reforms is suggestive that something else explains their low recidivism rates. There are, however, several additional reasons to doubt the rehabilitation story, many I discussed in greater detail previously. I’ll quickly summarize my main points together. These points address not only why the rehabilitation story is implausible as primary explanation, but also alternative factors that contribute to the low recidivism rate:
Compared to today, Norway had even lower recidivism rates in the ‘50s and ‘60s — prior to rehabilitation reforms.
Sweden, Finland and Denmark all have rehabilitation practices that are quite similar to Norway, and yet they don’t have much lower recidivism rates than the United States.
Norwegian recidivism trends are strongly related to trends in overall crime rate, as well as trends in the offense type composition, and not to trends in rehabilitation.
Norway is a country with low base rate of crime and incarceration, and is thus expected to have low recidivism rate (Yukhnenko et al., 2023).
Evidence shows that large intra-national variation in recidivism rates between prisons cannot be attributed to differences in the prisons themselves, but instead to compositional effects (Yu et al., 2022).
Norway is unusual in how they respond to some offense types, leading to an artificial reduction in recidivism rates merely through compositional effects. Their imprisonment of traffic offenders (who are at low risk of reoffending) is the most well-known contributor. But composition is not just affected by who are sent to prison, but also who are, say, instead given suspended sentences (for a longer discussion, see Kristoffersen, 2013).
Therapy, an often proposed method of rehabilitation, is ineffective at reducing overall recidivism (Beaudry et al., 2021; Olsson et al., 2021).
A significant minority of prisoners in Norway are foreigners, many of which are deported after serving a prison sentence and are thus (mostly) prevented from reoffending.
I would not claim that Norway’s rehabilitative approach has zero effect on recidivism rates. It might or it might not have, but such strong claims cannot currently be justified by the evidence. Skepticism regarding the supposedly amazing effects of Norwegian-style rehabilitation certainly is justified, however.
If one day a rigorous study with proper causal identification comes along and shows that Norwegian-style rehabilitation has some modest causal effect, I would not be shocked. However, I think we can confidently conclude that it is not the primary explanation for Norway’s low recidivism rate.
Conclusion
The data shows that Norway’s recidivism rates were at their lowest in a period prior to rehabilitation reforms. I have argued that trends in Norwegian recidivism rates are better explained by trends in overall crime rates, and by offense composition trends. This also suggests that much of the reduction in recidivism since the 2000s is simply explained by a reduction in overall crime rates, and not by superior rehabilitation.
The recidivism trend alone presents a serious challenge to the rehabilitation story. When taken together with all the other evidence, however, we can be rather confident that Norway’s low recidivism rate is primarily explained by things other than their rehabilitation practices.
This is not even an argument against notions of “Nordic exceptionalism.” When it comes to crime, the Nordic countries certainly come out on top when compared to, say, the United States. They have far less criminality, and that matters a great deal. What they don’t have is a miraculous cure that prevents their (lower number of) criminals from reoffending.
Appendix
Data sources
The recidivism data is taken from various sources. In all of the statistics published in official reports, the group being followed up are people who are charged with a crime, not imprisoned people. A “charge” can be regarded as a stricter measure of arrest (Andersen & Skardhamar, 2017).
For the years 1960-2000 (year of charge), recidivism statistics were provided directly by official annual crime statistics reports (“Kriminalstatistikk”), e.g. Kriminalstatistikk 1976, Kriminalstatistikk 1991, etc.
For the years 1960-1993, the measure used in the reports was the percent being charged for a crime (excluding misdemeanors), again within a period of 3 years. For the subset years of 1993-2000, recidivism was instead measured within a period of 5 years. Further, recidivism rates for crime (excluding misdemeanors) and offenses in general (including misdemeanors). In short, this means that the statistics provided in the period 1960-1993 and in the period 1992-2000 are not directly comparable. All else equal, the recidivism rate is higher when measured over a 5-year period, but it is lower when it includes misdemeanors. From 2002 forward, the statistics can be directly accessed from tables made publicly available by Statistics Norway. They provide 5-year recidivism rates, but the distinction between crimes and misdemeanors is only available up to 2009 as the distinction was rendered defunct in 2015. However, we can make an approximate continuation of the time series with the use of the recidivism statistics by detailed offense categories. I compared offense types that were categorized as misdemeanors previously (and thus were excluded), and tried to use as comparable offense types afterwards. That meant including violent crimes, sexual crimes, theft (except minor theft), murder, weapon crimes, fraud, among other things. Of the offense types excluded, the main category was traffic crimes, but also any “lesser” crimes (containing “mindre”). I made sure that the number of charged persons and recidivism rates roughly matched at the years of intersection (2009/2010).
I have supplemented these primary data sources with a few additional sources for the years 1951, 1957, 1962, and 1987 (Kristoffersen, 2006) and 2005 (Andersen & Skardhamar, 2017).
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