Sweden’s parliament will vote on plans to hold 13-year-olds criminally responsible and, in serious cases, imprison them. Other European nations are also lowering age limits.
Sweden’s parliament will vote on plans to hold 13-year-olds criminally responsible and, in serious cases, imprison them. Other European nations are also lowering age limits.
Very much the opposite, they’ll be going to school, getting psychological help, assistance in becoming better humans.
We want to be able to release them into society as productive members, not create bitter and hardened criminals.
So you want these kids, who killed somebody in cold blood, have TV, gym and fun in the prison in order to convince them that it is a bad idea to do it again, because they may end up in the same situation? Sorry, I was almost choking from laughing.
If you think prison is “fun” just because inmates are being treated with humanity and respect I don’t know what to tell you.
Recidivism in Sweden is just under 45% after 3 years and just under 70% in the US. The US being “tough on crime” and all.
And Russia or China? What percentage of recidivism you find there? I assume much lower than even Sweden.
Not sure why you’d look at Russia or China as examples of countries doing things well, or looking out for their citizens. Also I’m not sure I’d trust statistics from such authoritarian countries. That said, for China it seems to be between 40 and 50 percent, estimated since statistics were hard to come by. For Russia I didn’t manage to find any data. Not that I would trust that data anyway.
You can manipulate statistics in many ways. No totalitarian regime, dictator, or similar system is required for that. Russia and China can currently be considered extreme examples. However, another user below has provided Chinese sources claiming that everything is fine in China. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you consider those sources trustworthy.
I spent part of my youth living in a country under an authoritarian regime. Crime was very rare, and people generally wanted nothing to do with the security services, especially not with the prison system. Women could walk alone at night with little fear for their safety. Of course, incidents still occurred, but the perpetrators often faced severe consequences. In some cases, a man who beat his wife end up being beaten up by the police - know such cases.
Does that sound like a dream? In some respects, life was not that bad. In others, it was quite the opposite. Why? Because corruption and oppression were also very real possibilities and if you made perhaps rightfully some troubles it could be a tough life for you then, but that is another topic.
China is increasingly focusing on rehab and education, even among adult prison populations.
China also separates juveniles from the adults and send them to correctional schools not ordinary prisons.
https://en.spp.gov.cn/2026-01/05/c_1153075.htm
All that sounds very sweet but their primary reason seem to be to create better performing prison labour. This is the note that the china daily ends the article with: