NordenBladet – Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Swedish: Kriminalvården) is a Government agency that is part of the Swedish judicial system, tasked with incarcerating suspects during pre-trial and trial and convicts after sentencing. The Main Office of the agency is located in Norrköping.

The agency also handles deportations of individuals not allowed in the country.

Change and custody
The main tasks of the Prison and Probation Service are to implement prison and probation sentences, to supervise conditionally released persons, to implement instructions for community service, and to carry out pre-sentence investigations in criminal cases.

The Prison and Probation Service is also responsible for remand prisons and the transport service. Our vision is that spending time in the prison and probation system will bring about change, not simply provide secure custody. We want to encourage our clients to live a better life after serving their sentence.

A basic concept in the Swedish sanctions system is to avoid imprisonment when possible.

Imprisonment complicates the transition to a life of freedom and does not counter-act recidivism. That is why there are more people on probation than in prison in the Swedish Prison and Probation Service.

Our non-custodial clients number about 14,000 per day, compared with just over 4,500 prisoners per day.

Probation
Probation is the most common non-custodial sanction and places the convicted person under supervision, normally for one year. There is also a trial period of three years. Serious breaches of probation can lead to the sentence being served in prison instead. Probation can also be combined with a shorter prison sentence or a fine.

The Probation Service
The Probation Service is aimed primarily at the supervision of persons conditionally released on probation, with or without contract treatment/community service; intensive supervision with electronic monitoring; work at remand centres and prisons and preparing client social reports.

A client sentenced to probation or who has been released from prison on probation is assigned a supervising probation officer. The probation officer can be a part of the probation system or a layman. Each client has a special schedule for the probation period, regulating how often he or she meets the probation officer.

Official website: kriminalvarden.se