ABSTRACT
While Sweden is on the criminological map as an example of suggested exceptionalism in punishment, the country’s exceptionally punitive drug policy is less known. Sweden has one of the harshest drug policies in the globalised north; for example, drug use itself is criminalised. This punitive turn is strikingly illustrated in a 1991 governmental report stating that ‘it shall be difficult to be a drug misuser. The more difficult we make their lives, the more clear the other alternatives, that is a drug-free life, will appear’ (quoted in Lenke, L. and Olsson, B. (2002) ‘Swedish drug policy in the twenty-first century: A policy model going astray’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 582(1), pp. 64–79, 65). Criminalised women’s lifestyles are often conflated with drug use, and so their life stories are bound up with the effects of these policies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women on the route out of crime, this chapter explores women’s experiences with state control of their drug use, paying particular attention to how a culture of intervention influences their desistance processes. Findings include themes of cohesive control, denied desistance identity, and distrust in and disengagement with authorities. The chapter shows that while the Swedish approach has undoubtedly been successful in making it difficult to be a drug misuser, it likewise makes it difficult to be a successful desister.
