Penality in Scandinavia has been seen as somewhat of an outlier, a redoubt against the punitive turn witnessed in other parts of Western Europe and the United States. This article examines contemporary discourses of penality in Norway following the entry into government of the populist-right Progress Party. The analysis describes how government representatives frame themselves as protecting individual security and prioritising victims whilst pursuing a bordered version of penal populism directed against non-citizens. These non-Norwegians are shown to be the focus of a range of penal populist policies, including fast-track justice, a warehousing prison regime, targeting of petty offenders and the double punishment of imprisonment and deportation. In a context where the penal welfare consensus with respect to Norwegian citizens remains relatively strong, it is easier for the Progress Party to 'do populism' by focusing on non-citizens.

While Scandinavia in general and Norway in particular have been the focus of much criminological interest, the work of probation has largely been overlooked in favour of prisons. This article seeks therefore to contribute to our knowledge of Norwegian penality and desistance by analysing how probation caseworkers describe their practice. Caseworkers have a relational, contextualised understanding of probation clients and the challenges they face. That being said, even in a Scandinavian welfare state, caseworkers see the process of reintegration and change as difficult, highlighting a lack of human and social capital and the challenges of navigating an increasingly complex and impersonal welfare apparatus.

The Scandinavian exceptionalism literature has highlighted the relatively progressive and rehabilitative nature of imprisonment in Norway, with the Norwegian Correctional Services taking the view that those convicted of crimes have paid their debt to society at the end of their sentence. However, other parts of the Norwegian state take a more stringent view, imposing and enforcing significant and persistent debts on offenders. This article, based on official documents and interviews with Norwegian desisters and probation caseworkers, analyses how living with debt poses a major challenge for reintegration and desistance. Referred to informally as ‘punishment debt’, this pervasive but less visible aspect of Norwegian penality demonstrates the need to broaden the penal exceptionalism research agenda beyond the confines of the prison.

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Despite significant research interest in Norwegian penality, there remains much to be learned about how people in Norway experience life during and after punishment. This article is one of the first to explore the lived experience of desistance as narrated by Norwegian desisters. We analyse ‘small stories’ that either opened up or frustrated the co-creation of change, showing how desistance develops (or is stymied) at a micro level. Our analytical framework helped us understand our informants as active subjects navigating a complex terrain of psychological, relational and systemic processes. Informants described a long-term, unfinalized desistance process, leading in some cases to an extended experience of liminality and welfare supplication.