The offender between penal policies and local practices: A history of individualised punishment
The offender between penal policies and local practices: A history of individualised punishment

Summary/Abstract: Like many other jurisdictions, the Danish criminal justice system has used pre-sentence reports for almost a century to be able to impose individualised sanctions. During this period, suspended sentences and a range of alternative sanctions have been developed, and the number of pre-sentence reports issued has increased dramatically accordingly. These changes are often explained in terms of shifting ideologies about the relation between crime, person and society during the 20th century. However, this article argues that the larger, paradigmatic changes within penal decision-making may be articulated quite differently in everyday institutional practices. Both current and former perceptions of ‘the criminal’ thus appear as hybrid forms in judges’, probation officers’ and other professionals’ contemporary practices feeding into sentencing. The penal history of presentence reports as phenomenon thus enables us to raise awareness about contemporary, heterogeneous and anachronistic constructions of the defendant that influence their punishment.

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