Annette Olesen

Released to the “Battlefield” of the Danish Welfare State: A Battle Between Support and Personal Responsibility

Denmark, like the other Scandinavian countries, is built on the “Nordic welfare model” where policies emerge through political dialogue and parallel decision-making (Lappi-Seppala 2007). However, the “Nordic Welfare Model” is under pressure and the previous expert-driven and research-led strategy especially recognised within penal policy-making has been challenged and changed to a more politically ruled approach over the last decades (Lappi-Seppala and Storgaard 2014). Nevertheless, the Scandinavian countries are still acknowledged for their stable penal policies and by some categorised as the epitome of “Scandinavian penal exceptionalism” (Pratt 2008a, b; Lappi-Seppala 2007). The arguments for including Denmark in this “exception” are among others the country’s relatively low prison population rate trend varying from 61 to 72 per 100,000 of the national population the last 15 years; the rather stable total capacity of prisons with places for about 4,000 inmates (World Prison Brief); and the comparatively low sentences where 59 %. 6).

Ex-prisoners’ need for legal aid in Denmark

This chapter examines ex-prisoners’ need for legal aid and how legal aid could be organised, to fit in with their living conditions and the many hardships they face post-release in Denmark. Based on a larger qualitative study of prison release in Denmark, the chapter discusses the ex-prisoners’ complex legal and non-legal problems. This is followed by an examination of the ex-prisoners’ struggle to name their interrelated problems as legal issues and difficulties in approaching legal services for assistance. In relation to the ex-prisoners’ struggle to name their legal needs, as well as blame and claim their legal rights, the chapter draws on observations and evaluations from various projects aiming to meet vulnerable citizens’ need for legal support and discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in providing legal aid to ex-prisoners in Denmark.

Juss-Buss [Law Bus]: A Student-run Legal Aid Clinic

Since its establishment, the legal clinic Juss-Buss has played an important role in providing outreach legal aid to disadvantaged groups that would otherwise struggle to name their legal problems, and claim their rights in core welfare areas where the welfare state has abdicated its social responsibility. An important aspect of Juss-Buss’ work is outreach legal aid to prisoners. In outreach work the staff aims to build trust in order to be able to start ‘troubles-talks’, and thus help transform prisoners’ problems into legal terms. However, prisoners are hard to reach, so Juss-Buss also tries to establish grievance structures that inform, educate and empower prisoners to voice their problems. Another important task that Juss-Buss undertakes is legal policy work to clarify the legal needs of different disadvantaged groups in society and to improve their living situations. Juss-Buss’ legal policy work is based on and strengthen by their tradition-bound and strong brand; supported by their collaboration with the Faculty of Law of University of Oslo; their network of former Juss-Buss students occupying important positions in the legal field; and their exceptional data covering.