‘Parole is worse than doing time’: Understanding the pains of post-release supervision following a forvaring sentence

Norway uses indefinite post-conviction detention, or forvaring, as its most severe penal sanction. This article will be the first to describe how people who have served a forvaring sentence experience conditional release on parole. We develop an analytical framework that builds on the ‘pains of imprisonment’ literature and Sexton's work on penal consciousness. Based on interviews with eight people who have been released from forvaring under the supervision of the Norwegian Correctional Service, we set out three key themes: feeling imprisoned despite being free, fear of re-imprisonment, and frustrations connected to social networks including friends and family. Our analysis shows a significant gap between expectations and experiences of punishment and adds to recent arguments that punishment in Norway has more pervasive aspects than previously thought.