escape scandals, the Swedes still managed to maintain a broadly humane approach to sentencing, even of the most serious offenders: jail terms rarely exceed ten years; those who receive life imprisonment can still apply to the courts after a decade to have the sentence commuted to a fixed term, usually in the region of 18 to 25 years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of convicted criminals and continues to strive to minimize short-term prison sentences wherever possible by using community-based measures, which have been proven to be more effective at reducing reoffending. The overall reoffending rate in Sweden stands at between 30 and 40% over three years – to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One likely reason for the relatively low reoffending rate and the low rate of incarceration in Sweden (below 70 per 100,000 head of population) is that the age of criminal responsibility is set at 15. In the UK, for example, children aged ten to 17 and young people under the age of 21 record the highest reoffending rates: almost three quarters and two thirds, respectively. A good proportion of these offenders go on to populate adult jails. In Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life – this is not the case in many other countries – and every effort is made to