Äro fängelser nödvändiga? : Socialistisk agitation och påverkan på det svenska rättssystemet 1880-1900

Sammanfattning: In this thesis, the author seeks to investigate the origin, development and consequenses of socialist critisismagainst prison policy and the legal system in Sweden during the last decades of the 19th century. It shows thatbefore the year of 1885 critisism against society was largely confined to the politically involved upper classes ofsociety. It then shows a dramatic increase in interest for criminal policy after the indictment of prison directorLagerberg in 1887, and the following indictments against the editor in cheif of the socialist newspaper Arbetetthe same year. This critisism then develops a specified focus on certain areas parrallell with the generalisedsocialetal critique.The results seem to show that the origin of the socialist critisism is the two criminal cases in 1887, and that intheir aftermath the socialist critisism increased as well as focused from a general critique to a more specifiedthree areas of prison labour, unfair prison sentences for unpaid fines, and the usage of military staff in civilianprisons. Lasty results show that all of these three areas display a shift towards meeting the socialist demands inthe decades following the origin of the critique, however there is insufficient evidence to support that thesechanges are directly related to the critisism.