Cellens Mörker : En Studie Kring Straffarbetsfångar på Karlstad Länsfängelse mellan åren 1875-1885

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to study inmates of Karlstad County Prison between the years of 1875 and 1885. The study is focused on studying 50 inmates and formulating statistics based on their age, hometown, their place of employment and the funds they had on them at their release from their prison sentence and if they relapsed to crime.  The major study questions to that are going to be answered in the analysis are as follows: ·         Are there any connections to be made between the inmates’ crimes and events of the late 1800’s? ·         Are there any connections between the inmates’ profession and the crime they committed? The study showed that most of the inmates were in their 20’s, the oldest among them was 53 years old and the youngest was 16 years old. Most of the inmates were from Stockholm and only 3 of the 50 inmates were from Karlstad. The most common crime was theft. There were only two of the fifty inmates who didn’t commit theft. Their employments varied, but most of them were workers to some extent, eight of them were soldiers and four of them didn’t have a place of employment documented. The prisoner with the most funds had 110 kronor and the prisoner with the least funds had 3 kronor and 34 öre. 16 of 50 prisoners relapsed and got sentenced again, but none of these prisoners were sentenced to Karlstad County Prison for a second time. Two larger conclusions were made during the analysis. The first was that the long depression during the late 1800’s had a direct impact on the amount of prisoners admitted to Karlstad County Prison, and that the soldiers had it especially bad and that it was therefore common to commit crimes while serving in the Swedish military during the 1800’s before conscription was established.