One of the harshest critics of the system of legal protection was the director-general of the State Prison Board, Clas Livijn, who wrote in 1844 that the Vagrancy Act of 1833 was barely enforceable.
1 Livijn, Promemoria, pp. 13–14. It was simply impossible to incarcerate all unprotected people, not least because of lack of space in state correctional facilities. The majority of those sentenced to hard labour were sent to one of the state houses of correction or to the Pioneer Corps (men only in the latter case).
2 Norrköping City Library (hereafter NSB), Styrelsen öfver Fängelserne och Arbetsinrättningarne till Kongl. Maj:t afgifna Berättelse angående Fångwården i Riket år 1835, fols 121–2, Kriminalvårdsstyrelsen i Norrköpings arkiv. If not sent to the Pioneer Corps, people sentenced in Västmanland were placed in one of two institutions in Stockholm: the Northern Correctional Facility for Women and the Southern Correctional Facility for Men. Men sentenced to a house of correction were to serve for an unlimited time or until they had obtained legal protection, both before and after 1833. Before 1833, women were to serve a sentence of one to three months. In reality, women could be imprisoned for much longer, as they also were supposed to have obtained legal protection before being released. After 1833, women were sentenced in the same way as men.
3 Johnsson, Vårt fredliga, pp. 92–3. From 1835 to 1839 ‘vagrants’, the largest prisoner category, comprised around 50 per cent of all prisoners in state institutions.
4 Styrelsens öfver Fängelserne [årsberättelse 1838–1839] (Stockholm, 1842), p. 17. In 1838 501 people without a criminal record were being detained for ‘vagrancy’.
5 Styrelsens öfver Fängelserne [årsberättelse 1838–1839] (Stockholm, 1842), litt. F. The total number of arrests for lack of legal protection and ‘vagrancy’ increased in the decade after official statistics became available in 1835 (Figure 9.1).
6 The c.3,000 arrests made in 1845 in Stockholm account for half of the arrests in Sweden, whereas the population of Stockholm (88,000) represents only 3 per cent of the Swedish population. Even if it had been possible to penalise unemployment for centuries, the trend now – in the words of Annika Snare – was towards institutionalisation.
7 Snare, Work, p. 162.~
Figure 9.1. Arrests for lack of legal protection and ‘vagrancy’ in Sweden, 1835–55. Source: Bidrag till Sveriges officiella statistik. Serie G. Fångvården. Fångvårdsstyrelsens underdåniga berättelse för år 1860 (Stockholm, 1862), p. 3.
The detainment of thousands of people cost money, and the central government’s costs for the prison system increased rapidly during the first half of the nineteenth century (Figure 9.2). The law could not be enforced by incarcerating everyone who could be labelled a ‘vagrant’ in legal terms. However, that does not mean that legal protection and compulsory service had no significance. Obviously, it mattered to the state budget and to all those thousands who were detained, for instance, in the county jail of Västmanland.
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Figure 9.2. Costs for the Swedish state prison system according to the state budgets, 1823–47. Source: Register till riksdagens protokoll med bihang, 1809–1866 (Stockholm, 1891–3), pp. 561–6. Note: nominal values in rix-dollars.