Norwegian Youth Punishment - Opportunity or Trap?

Morten Holmboe

doi:10.15845/bjclcj.v5i1.1352

Abstract

The question of how the criminal justice system should deal with young offenders is an old one. Traditionally, the Norwegian criminal justice system has held that it should treat young offenders less severely than adults. The use of imprisonment is therefore restricted. In 2014, Norway implemented two new kinds of penal reactions directed towards young offenders, youth follow-up and youth punishment, inspired by the ideas underpinning restorative justice. The intention of youth punishment is that it is more severe but better suited than community sentencing when young people commit serious crimes. Consequently, the use of imprisonment for young offenders should be further reduced. In this article, I describe the rules concerning the sentencing and executing of youth punishment. Overall, I am of the opinion that while the premise underlying youth punishment is sound, the rules need to be amended to better reflect the expressed intent of the legislator.

Highlights

In Norway, the age of criminal responsibility is 15 years.[1]
There is a long tradition in Norwegian law for treating young offenders less severely than mature offenders
The reasoning behind youth punishment is that it will often be better suited to the needs of a young offender than a community sentence will be

Summary

Introduction

In Norway, the age of criminal responsibility is 15 years.[1] There is a long tradition in Norwegian law for treating young offenders less severely than mature offenders. This is, not unique to Norwegian society.[2] in this article, I focus on some specific Norwegian regulations concerning (the choice of) penal reaction towards young offenders. While the punishment for an offender of age 17 years 11 months will often be significantly more lenient, an offender who just turned 18 will seldom receive a more lenient sentence because of his or her age. Offenders under the age of 18 at the time of the offence are subject to a more lenient approach in that they

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Results

Conclusion