APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6
Judges of the courts of first instance and courts of appeal are law school graduates who attain their positions after 15 to 20 years of experience in the judicial civil service. Most Supreme Court justices are also chosen from the judicial civil service, but prominent attorneys and law professors are occasionally appointed to the high court bench. In terms of salary and prestige the justices of the Supreme Court and the presiding judges of the six courts of appeal rank highest. The division heads of the courts of appeal are next in importance. District court judges and city court chief justices generally enjoy equal distinction.
b. Penal system
The Swedes share with their Scandinavian neighbors the most enlightened penal system in the world. In the post-World War II period there has been a strong movement for uniformity in criminal law and in prison systems throughout the Nordic area.
Confined persons in Sweden may not only receive visits from relatives and friends but are given frequent furloughs to visit their homes. Long-term inmates are sometimes afforded the opportunity of spending several days during the summer with their spouses in pleasant accommodations rented from the state at cost by the spouse. The regular prison facilities are generally adequate to handle the prison population comfortably, and treatment of inmates is humane. The amount of psychiatric care available, however, is considered inadequate, and authorities are striving to remedy this. Only prison guards assigned to maximum security areas carry firearms. Swedish penologists are loathe to risk inflicting bodily harm on inmates in their custody, a "punishment," they rationalize, for which there would be no justification within the law.
In 1968 about 8,000 persons were given probationary sentences for crimes punishable by imprisonment. Another 10,000 were given prison terms, many for only a few months. The number of inmates in Sweden at any given time is about 5,000 in a total population of over 8 million. There are some 3,100 prison employees, or nearly one staff member for every two prisoners. Many criminals, particularly young people are given institutional treatment for 6 to 8 weeks and then placed under a supervisor who is similar to a probation office. The supervisors, who number some 10,000, are selected, well-adjusted, and respected individuals who act as big brothers to minor lawbreakers and first offenders. They get a symbolic payment, about US$5 a month, for their efforts.
All fines except for drunkenness and disorderly conduct are set in a fixed number of units called "day-fines," a holdover in terminology from an earlier era when the poor had to pay imposed fines in daily installments. The contemporary day-dines range in number from one to 120, depending upon the seriousness of offense. A maximum of 180 day-fines may be imposed if several crimes are punished concurrently. The amount of a single day-fine varies, depending avowedly on the offender's ability to pay. This amount is then multiplied by the number of day-fines imposed, largely predetermined in the penal code by the nature of the specific offense. A single day-fine may vary in amount from SKr2 to SKr500.
Sweden, like other Scandinavian countries, has no juvenile courts. Child welfare boards, elected by the local councils, deal with all cases of socially maladjusted and delinquent juveniles under 15 years of age; they are also empowered to deal with juveniles between 15 and 17 whose cases call for special corrective measures. Offenders aged 18 to 20 years may be remanded to care under the Child Welfare Act, even though the regular correctional system is responsible for offenders after they reach their 18th birthday. The child welfare boards afford advisory assistance, admonish the parents, and supervise the child's regime under preventative procedures. Taking a child into custody for social care is the last resort. Institutions for child care are administered locally by public authorities or, in certain instances, privately. Youth welfare schools for lawbreakers are operated by the state.
5. Provincial and local government
The marked responsiveness of government to the governed in Sweden - a typically Scandinavian phenomenon - stems in important measure from the traditional vitality of the provincial and local councils. Nonetheless, during the almost four decades of Social Democratic political domination, the central government has steadily encroached on purely local prerogatives. This erosion of local autonomy, opposed by the other parties and perhaps by a majority of the electorate, and a probably campaign issue in the 1973 elections, showed signs of easing in early 1972.
Of the national government agencies, the Ministry of Interior exerts the widest range of influence over the provincial and local governments. It prepares national legislation affecting them and considers appeals which arise from decisions or actions of local officials; at the provincial levels it supervises the National Police, the firefighting and civil defense systems, and the administration of the comprehensive national health programs. Other ministries with extensive local authority are Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs,
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6
