Captivating Communication : The Swedish Prison and Probation Service’s Storytelling and Creation of Legitimacy

Sammanfattning: The stories about prison are infinite, and ultimately affect our understanding of incarceration. Punishment and prison are also political, and the shape of the penal system is fundamentally different in different countries. In Sweden, prison has been understood as part of the welfare state, and depicted as a rehabilitative measure, employed on the road towards a better society. It is essential to study how punishment is constructed in political and cultural discourse, because of how it affects the understanding and legitimacy of the penal system. Building on previous research on the relationship between punishment and the welfare state, as well as on prison in culture, this study investigates how The Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvården) depict their operations in their podcast Without Passing Go and in their advertising campaign in the fall of 2023. Drawing on the concept of Nordic exceptionalism, and a cultural criminological understanding of how fact and fiction blur when it comes to crime and criminal justice, this thesis revolves around what stories of the Swedish carceral system are told in Kriminalvården’s own channels of communication. Ultimately, prison and the work Kriminalvården perform are often legitimized through calling upon welfare ideals, but the study also encountered deviations from this approach. Furthermore, Kriminalvården at times make use of the danger and thrill of prison, reproducing cultural understandings of incarceration, and the inmate is constructed as at times dangerous, and at times reformable. Lastly, the advertisement is discussed, and how it seems to indicate Kriminalvården’s crucial role in ensuring the continuation of our ‘normal’ lives, reproducing notions of normalcy and deviancy. Taken together, the thesis thereby discusses several different aspects of Kriminalvården’s legitimacy-making.