The use of pre-trial solitary confinement (SC) in Scandinavia has been criticised for 25 years, and raised questions about to what degree Scandinavian prison practice is generally lenient and humane (Smith 2012). Meanwhile, prison decided SC has been given little attention. In recent years however, a critical attention in general, and towards ‘de facto’ isolation in particular, has risen to a historical level. Reports from national and international prison inspection bodies and a series of court decisions has revealed a practice of isolating prisoners out of practical reasons (prison design, budgets and staffing). This calls for a better understanding of not only how the law works in practice, but also how concepts as ‘solitary confinement’ used in international soft law are understood and thus produce different practices in everyday prisons settings.
Based on empirical findings from fieldwork (documents, interviews and observational data) this paper unravels how discretionary power, and the institutional organisation of it, gives de facto SC. Starting in actual happenings in a prison unit, the paper questions double punishment as consequences of resisting punitive power as well as punitive aspects of preventive exclusion of company with others – both challenging prisoners’ rights, even when performed in ‘Scandinavian good will’.
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