Controlling young people through treatment and punishment

This chapter demonstrates how both treatment and punishment is part of controlling young people involved in crime in the Danish welfare state. Lately there has been an increase in the use of confinement in young offenders institutions and thus a turn towards stricter punishments for crime. However, treatment aiming at rehabilitation is still an integrated part of the system and the organization of the young offenders institutions. For the young people subjected to control both treatment and punishment are regarded as effective means of risk-control but there are also limitations and unintended results of exclusion and marginalization. When seeking to control young people involved in crime, the Danish social welfare state is not only social and humane but also exclusionary and at times inhumane.