Prevention through Treatment or Incapacitation?

The Criminal Code of 1902 was in effect until October 2015, and has consequently framed Norwegian criminal law for more than a Century. The code was originally part of a larger penal reform and pivotal in Norwegian socialand criminal policy-making at the turn of the century. The Law Professor Francis Hagerup (1853-1921) emphasised the year before the code was adopted that the reform did not only include the Criminal Code, but a number of bills which were interrelated.2 Hagerup mentioned three domains that deserved special attention: children, vagrancy and alcoholism. These domains corresponded to two other major legal reforms at the time: the Treatment of Neglected Children Act (1896) and the Vagrancy, Begging and Drunkenness Act (1900). Professor and Director General of Public Prosecution Bernhard Getz (1850-1901), the main architect behind the