Published: Less than 30 min ago
More prisoners in each cell, more demanding individuals, more serious criminals who are sentenced to long sentences and, in addition, a crisis staffing situation.
Despite newly opened places at the high-security facility Hall, it is unclear whether the Correctional Service will keep up with the development.
Gray doors in a gray corridor will welcome the new inmates of the Class 1 Hall facility when they move in in a few weeks. The eleven square meters that make up each cell are larger than usual, and they are all equipped with their own shower. It is also not part of the norm.
– Here they have a chair, a desk and a shelf system to keep books and clothes and so on, says Olof Vannäs and points around the room.
Vannäs, sub-project manager at the Correctional Service, explains that all the furniture in the cells, which also has a TV mounted on the wall, is made by inmates at the Correctional Service’s institutions around the country.
Divides cells
24 of the 120 new cells will, however, be equipped with two beds right from the start, and thus house two prisoners instead of one. That was not the plan from the beginning, but is an effect of the high occupancy prevailing in Swedish prisons.
In 2022, the occupancy rate was over one hundred percent throughout the country, counting only fixed locations.
– No, it’s not reasonable, says Director General of the Correctional Service Martin Holmgren to TT after he cut the ribbon for the new prison building.
– We have a goal that the occupancy rate should be 95 percent and we are quite far from that now. This means that in order to cope with the situation, we partly had to expand in the form of modular houses, and partly that we have a lot of double coating in cells both in the detention center and in the institution, says Holmgren.
The expansion is only the first of several planned stages at Hall. According to the Norwegian Correctional Service’s ten-year plan, it is to grow with 4,200 permanent places in prisons and detention centers across the country.
– We do that all over the country and there are currently around 50 construction projects underway, from north to south, says Martin Holmgren.
Biggest challenge
Perhaps the biggest challenge for the authority is staffing. During last year, they did not succeed in recruiting to the extent that was required and the staffing situation is deemed to have been critical.
In the authority’s annual report for 2022, a rather gloomy picture is painted. The increased crowding, together with a lack of employment and more demanding inmates has led to an increased burden on the staff. According to the authority, the imbalance between experienced and inexperienced personnel has also contributed to a deteriorating work environment within all branches of business.
The strained situation also meant that in “several respects they were forced to accept higher risk-taking in order to carry out their mission”.
TT: How will you manage to recruit staff in this situation?
– Many who work in the authority describe what an enormously nice assignment it is. But we need to work with salary strategic investments and raise the salaries of a lot of people who work close to clients, and we need to work with work environment issues, says Martin Holmgren.
“Very awkward location”
However, the fact that 2022 was a tough year for the authority is not something the director general is boasting about.
– It has perhaps been even tougher than in previous years and we have already said that it is a very difficult situation. We are very challenged, we have very few vacant places in the detention centers and institutions and we have difficulty keeping up with recruitment and training. It’s a bit of a knife fight right now.
In addition to the already tough situation, a number of proposals in the Tidö Agreement mean that the pressure on the Prison Service will likely increase even more. In April, the authority must report to the government how it will be able to handle it.
TT: Do you have time to grow at the pace that politics wants?
– It will be very difficult. Can we build on those reforms at all? Can we supply expertise to the extent needed? That is the big question, says Martin Holmgren.
Facts
Institution Hall
Hall is a prison with security class 1, the highest security class of closed institutions in Sweden. Institutions in security class 1 are equipped to cope with the most risky inmates.
Hall is located five kilometers outside Södertälje and dates back to 1875, when the facility was a home for “disorderly” boys. Hall became a prison in 1940 and has since been expanded in stages and also renovated.
Source: Correctional Service
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