More criminals in Denmark sentenced to community service

Blue block wants to send more convicts to prison

Lucie Rychla

More criminals in Denmark are being sentenced to community service than sent to prison, shows a new analysis by the Danish Prison and Probation Service.

Last year some 7,265 convicts were handed a suspended sentence of community service or were sent to detention with an ankle monitor, while 5,100 people served time behind bars.

READ MORE: DF: Life in prison should mean exactly that

Less recidivism
In 2015, the former government, led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt, changed the criminal law favouring community service over imprisonment.

But the current government has proposed to revert the law, so that more convicts, such as sexual offenders, are sentenced to prison and cannot move about ‘freely’.

An evaluation from 2014 revealed that the risk of relapsing back into crime is reduced by 15 to 39 percent if a convict is punished with a suspended sentence of community service instead of a prison sentence.

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