Criminal justice and detention

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles Art. 37 and 40) in the policy and practice of detention of children within the Norwegian criminal justice system. It covers three different forms of detention (pre-trial police custody, pre-trial court-ordered custody and detention as punishment) from a legal and empirical perspective. The chapter finds that Norway has, to a large extent, addressed many critiques from the CRC Committee, including on limitation of the use of detention, conditions for detained children, and the need for various law reforms. However, challenges remain in relation to time-unlimited preventive detention of children and conditions in police detention. Moreover, the authors highlight a cross-cutting challenge within Norway has – the near absence of specialization with regard to youth criminal justice, and conclude that there is a need for the further development of alternatives to traditional criminal justice detention.