Swedish prisons have a reputation around the world for being liberal and modern. But are the country’s prisons too soft?
The head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, said in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons will close because of an “out of the ordinary” drop in the number of prisoner.
There has been no fall in crime rates, but, between 2011 and 2012, there was a 6% drop in the number of people in Sweden’s prisons, now a little over 4,500. Oberg said he was confused by the drop in numbers, but hoped that the reason was to do with how his prisons are managed. “We certainly hope that the efforts we put into rehabilitation and into stopping criminals from reoffending has made a difference,” he said.
“The modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,” says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden’s most secure jail. “When I joined, prisoners were treated well – maybe too well. But, after high- profile escapes in 2004, we had to make the prisons more secure.”
In Sweden, prison sentences are not usually for more than ten years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of criminals and it continues to keep prison sentences short when possible by using community-based punishments. These have stopped many criminals from reoffending.
The reoffending rate in Sweden is between 30 and 40% – to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One thing that has kept reoffending down and the number of prisoners in Sweden below 70 per 100,000 people is that anyone under 15 cannot be responsible for their crime.
Also, in Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life – this is not the same in many other countries – and they try to keep young offenders out of prison.
One reason for the drop in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A government-run probation service gives treatment programmes to offenders with drug, alcohol or violence problems. Around 4,500 Swedes help the service – they volunteer to make friends with and support offenders.
“In Sweden, we believe very much in the idea of rehabilitation,” says Gustafsson. “Of course, there are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, most prisoners want to change and we must do what we can to help them.”


Intermediate
Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University teaches a MOOC  a massive open online course  in literature. The course is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. According to Brabon, many students enrol on MOOCs because they are free and they enjoy communicating with other students. MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees, so students behave very differently from students on traditional higher education courses.
MOOCs are the newest big idea to try to make higher education available to everyone. A lot of money is being invested in new online platforms that deliver sophisticated and interactive courses to tens of thousands of students. Investors hope to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable  so far, courses have depended on universities funding their star lecturers course design and online teaching time. One way of making a return on the investment might be studying data about how, why and when millions of students sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course.
One of the questions about the future direction of MOOCs is that nobody can yet say who exactly they benefit. Universities who want to attract fee-paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries who want access to first-world universities? Employees who wish to develop their professional knowledge? People without qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who want to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest?
MOOCs may be popular at the beginning, but they have very poor completion rates, says Brabon. His literature course had 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level, he says. So MOOCs may not be opening up higher education to sectors of the population it hasnt reached yet.
Learning online is a different thing and needs quite advanced learning skills, confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at a charity that promotes the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. With MOOCs, theres very little support available: the student does not get any individual attention. Instead, they get peer support, such as online discussion forums. Although this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it suggests, he says, that MOOCs could be a really good tool for continuing education.
At a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply because the price of a degree is rising, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? I dont think thats how MOOCs work, says Brabon. Instead, he suggests a blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.
But thats a little way into the future. For now, MOOC completion certificates have no quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards, so employers will not be impressed by them. Accreditation is now essential for MOOCs if they want to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon.
Some people are idealistic about MOOCs  they want to bring the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But theres cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus courses to bigger numbers of lucrative students from outside the EU.
Mike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesnt agree with that cynicism. MOOCs are mainly a way to publicize and share universities best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and getting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that enrolling international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of MOOCs  but they could certainly be a very clever marketing idea, as he observes that if 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC  well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a masters.
In South America, China and countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the worlds best courses are now offered online, adds Sharples. If people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to study MOOCs, but also to create them.


“There are certainly MOOC junkies, who take them for no other reason than they’re free and they like hanging out,” grins Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University, whose massive open online course in vampire fiction is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. Brabon isn’t denigrating people who enrol on MOOC courses: he’s simply pointing out the motivation that prompts certain individuals to sign up. When a course is open entry – MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees to pay – then participants are going to behave very differently from students in a traditional higher education setting.
MOOCs are the newest big thing in the quest to enable higher education for all. A great deal of venture capital money is being invested in the emerging online platforms, which enable the delivery of increasingly sophisticated and interactive course content to participants who can number in the hundreds to the tens of thousands. For these investors, the Holy Grail is to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable – so far, courses have depended on universities being prepared to bankroll their star lecturers’ curriculum design and online teaching time. Mining the data captured about how, why and when millions of participants opt to sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course may be one way of getting a return on the investment.
Part of the dilemma around which future direction MOOCs will take, however, is that nobody can yet define whom exactly they are meant to benefit. Universities keen to entice fee- paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries hungry for access to first-world universities? Employees wishing to develop their professional knowledge? People lacking qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who are keen to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest?
Though they may be popular to start off with, MOOCs have dire completion rates, observes Brabon. For his vampire fiction course, that meant 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. “And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,” he says. “So the MOOCs trend may not be opening up HE to sectors of the population it hasn’t reached to date.”
“Learning online is a different thing, needs quite advanced learning skills,” confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at Jisc, a charity that champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. “With MOOCs, there’s very little support available: the student is dropped in and tends not to get any individual attention. This is, instead, approximated by peer support such as online discussion forums.” While this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it does, he says, suggest that MOOCs could be “a really good tool for continuing education.”
At a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply as the price of a degree rises, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? “I don’t think that’s how MOOCs work,” says Brabon. Instead, he suggests “a blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.”
But that’s a little way into the future: for now, no prospective employer will care much if you come waving your MOOC completion certificate, without any quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards. Accreditation is therefore now the central challenge that MOOCs must grapple with to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon, who is on a Quality Assurance Agency working group, aiming to develop an agreed approach to standards and marking.
There is idealism around the concept of MOOCs bringing the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But there’s cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus wares to greater numbers of lucrative – though certainly not always wealthy – students from outside the EU.
Mike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn’t buy into that cynicism. MOOCs are viewed primarily as a way to showcase and share universities’ best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and soliciting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that recruiting international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of running MOOCs – though they could certainly be a very canny marketing move, as he observes that “if 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC – well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a master’s.”
Meanwhile, any politically correct qualms about whether UK academic institutions are patronizing developing countries by exporting small snippets of elitist education may soon be entirely irrelevant, warns Matthew Poyiadgi, managing director at Pearson VUE. “I believe we may get to a situation in the future where universities maybe won’t have a choice, and where British universities are saying, 'if we don’t have a presence in China, then we’ll get left behind,'” he says.
“In South America, China, countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the world’s best courses are being offered online,” adds Sharples. “If people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to consume and study MOOCs, but also to create them.”