| Description |
This program, a survey of Sweden’s legal system, opens with a dramatization of a court case in which three juveniles are charged with auto theft and criminal assault. The film shows a panel of elected laymen --some trained in social work --who help the judge reach a decision. (Juries are used only in press libel cases.) These three teenagers are found guilty. The film moves to one of the country’s nine “youth prisons” where young offenders between the ages of 18 and 21 are “re-socialized.” The Swedes believe, the narrator explains, that the work of penologists is rehabilitation, not punishment. Appearing on the program is Alfred Bexelius, ombudsman (or procurator) of civil rights, the special Swedish official who investigates all cases where civil rights may have been violated. Also, commenting on Sweden’s attitudes toward the prevention of crime are Ulla Bergkwist, psychiatrist and head of the youth care center at Roxtuna and Torsten Eriksson, director general of Swedish prisons and well-known penologists.
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