People in the UK favour harsher punishment than Norwegians – belief in free will may help explain why

Ongoing problems in the criminal justice system in England and Wales, from overcrowding in prisons to court backlogs, have raised fundamental questions about how and why we punish people. Advocates for a more rehabilitative, less punitive system often point to Scandinavian prisons as a model for how things could be done better. My colleagues and I wanted to find out how beliefs about free will and crime may influence different approaches to punishment. In a recent study of 328 people across…