IndeSent: Indeterminate sentencing and imprisonment – an interdisciplinary study of the experiences of court processes and prison practices

In Denmark, indeterminate sentences are given to people who commit serious offences (murder, aggravated violence, sexual offenses, arson, and robbery) and who are deemed likely to reoffend due to previous offending and their mental state.

They are held in prison indeterminately in order to protect the public and enable rehabilitation - a practice which is in line with the Council of Europe’s recommendations.

Indeterminate sentences have one particular feature that sets them aside from all other types of imprisonment: there is no guarantee of ever being released. This uncertainty often results in severe pains for the prisoners in question.

While there is a fairly rich literature on indeterminate imprisonment in the Anglo-phone countries, the last explorative study of indeterminate imprisonment in the Nordic countries was conducted over 50-years ago, hence our understanding of contemporary experiences of indeterminate confinement remains very limited.

IndeSent responds to the Council of Europe’s call for more research focused on the needs of the offender in the light of the negative effects of the often long-term imprisonment.

The research project will provide an in-depth examination of the experience of being indeterminately sentenced by a court and of serving an indeterminate sentence in prison.

The combination of courts and prison practices is one of the most pioneering aspects of the proposed research, illustrating the connections between the wider aims and functions of the penal state and the everyday practices, experiences and interactions in prison.

Usually, there is a sharp distinction between the allocation and delivery of punishment; the first happens in courts and the second in penal institutions.

Using ethnographic research methods (participant observation, in-depth interviews and a Dialogue Group), IndeSent will address this gap in the scholarship by focusing on the experiences of the indeterminate sentenced in the two arenas of punishment.