Den store grønlandske indespærring

Resumé

Gennem årtier er det lykkedes at fastholde billedet af Grønland som landet uden fængsel. Baggrunden for det fængselsløse samfund skal findes i den grønlandske kriminallov fra 1954, hvor fængsler ingen plads havde i kriminalloven – og i Grønland. Båndet mellem skyld og straf var brudt, og foranstaltninger skulle vælges ud fra det, som tjente gerningsmandens genindtræden i samfundet bedst. Frem for afsoning i fængsler, skulle landets dømte afsone i åbne anstalter, så de kunne bevare deres tilknytning til det omkringliggende samfund. I 2017 skal Grønland have sit første fængsel – eller lukkede anstalt, som den kaldes, og med dette bliver Grønland som landet uden fængsel endelig fortid. Men allerede før det første fængsel er opført, bringer landet med et fangetal på 309 indsatte pr. 100.000 indbyggere sig ind på en 33. plads over de mest straffende lande i verden. Artiklen undersøger, hvorvidt hverdagslivet i de grønlandske anstalter adskiller sig fra hverdagslivet i fængsler for herigennem at kunne vurdere, om der er tale om sammenligning af vidt forskellige enheder, når Grønland inddrages i international statistik over fangebefolkninger. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Annemette Nyborg Lauritsen: The Great Greenlandic Incarceration The image of Greenland as the country without prisons has been successfully maintained for decades. This is due to the Greenlandic criminal code from 1954. Prisons had no place in this criminal code – nor in Greenland. The link between guilt and punishment was broken and measures were to be chosen based on what best served the re-entry of the offender into society. Instead of serving a sentence in prison, the country’s offenders were to serve in open institutions in order to retain the connection to the surrounding community. Now Greenland is expected to open its first prison in 1917, and the idea of Greenland as the country without prisons will be history. However even before the first prison is built, Greenland ranks as the 33rd most punishing country in the world with 309 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants. The article examines how everyday life in Greenlandic institutions for convicts differs from everyday life in prisons, in order to assess whether the comparison is carried out between widely different units when Greenland is included in international statistics of prison populations. Keywords: imprisonment, resocialization, criminology, social anthropology.