ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the inmates’ view of the treatment situation at the institutions, since it is in this area that most systematic data are available. Of the total number of “comments” written at the end of the questionnaire on both test occasions, only six alluded to any positive results of the institutionalization. According to the U.N.’s minimal standards for treatment of prisoners, each institution is to have access to at least one qualified medical officer with expertise in psychiatry and one dentist. The Swedish prison system was based on the Pennsylvania-style prison and only after the practice of isolation was abolished as the universal rule in the 1940s, was it seen as meaningful to build workshops. A gifted boy unlikely to escape was placed at Skenas, the open youth prison, in agricultural or other work, when he might profit better from a radio workshop at Mariefred, a closed youth prison.
