Contrasts in legitimacy: Indefinite preventive sentencing in Norway and England and Wales

This article explores an ostensibly strange legitimacy gap between two forms of indefinite preventive detention in Norway and in England and Wales – jurisdictions, respectively, considered progressive and punitive outliers in Europe. Despite their differing penal traditions, both jurisdictions have employed indefinite post-conviction preventive detention, through the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence in England and Wales and forvaring in Norway. A key distinction is that IPPs were legislatively abolished after widespread criticism, while forvaring retains high levels of legitimacy, representing a pocket of indefinite punishment within Norway's penal-welfare state. Our comparison analyses four contributory explanations for this: burden of proof; scale, resourcing and delivery; position in the penal hierarchy; and different penal cultures. We conclude that Norway's emphasis on rehabilitation fosters a more permissive context for change-based sanctions, while the availability of formal life sentences in England and Wales facilitated the abolition of IPPs without a major penal shift.