Center for criminology & crime policy in Greenland

Over the past 2-4 years, the Institute of Society, Economics & Journalism has experienced a greater intensity in external inquiries to carry out evaluation and research projects commissioned by the Government of Greenland, the Greenland prison system & probation service, and the Greenland Police, among others.

In addition, politicians are focusing on the criminal policy area and whether sanctions in criminal cases are severe enough.

The politicians wanted to debate whether sentencing guidelines should be introduced in this country and whether the length of a fixed-term prison sentence should be increased from the current 10 years to 16 years or the possibility of life sentences.

The offender principle has been the mainstay of the original 1954 Criminal Code. However, when the current Criminal Code came into force in 2010, a model was chosen that equates the perpetrator and offender principles.

With the introduction of sentencing guidelines and fixed-term prison sentences of up to 16 years, the last remnant of the central factor in Greenlandic justice will be broken. And with it, a final showdown with the legacy of the criminal legislation of the 1950s will take place, and perhaps make a special Greenlandic criminal law redundant.

There is great interest in the field of criminal policy.

In this light, with a Center for Criminology & Criminal Policy in Greenland, we want to work to build systematic knowledge in the field and collect literature, legislation and legal sources. The intention is also to anchor incoming projects in the center.

Overall, we have two goals with the center:

1. Communicate a common understanding of what Greenland stands for in the field of criminal policy: Which way do you want to go in relation to the professionalization of legal actors. And what Greenland “stands on” with the legacy of the Legal Expedition.
2. Establishment of an expert network consisting of practitioners from the Greenlandic legal system and possibly politicians who can point the way forward for where Greenland is heading in terms of crime policy.