Swedish Rapists Can Have Porn in Prison

AP, 6/27/07 - Convicted sex offenders are free to read pornography in their cells, a Swedish court ruled, saying the country's prison system had no right to deny an imprisoned rapist access to his porn magazines.
Officials with the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had argued that reading porn would interfere with the man's rehabilitation program. They also said the magazines posed a security problem for staff and other inmates because they could increase the risk of the man relapsing into criminal behavior.

But the Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm, whose ruling last week cannot be appealed, said the prison service failed to prove that the magazines could "jeopardize the security of the institution."

Prison officials said they had asked the government to change the law so that they could continue to ban porn magazines at the Nordic nation's prisons.

"It increases the risk of assault for other inmates and it is provocative for personnel," Elisabeth Kwarnmark, a prison service psychologist, said in response to the ruling.

Kwarnmark said that other pornographic material, such as adult movies, channels and websites, is not permitted in Swedish prisons. Child and violent pornography are also banned.

More porn news from Sweden ...

Porn on Swedish TV News Gets No Complaints

AP, 8/21/06 - Sweden's state broadcaster SVT on Monday faced ridicule for mistakenly showing a porn movie in the background of a news broadcast over the weekend.

Viewers of a 5-minute news update at midnight Saturday could see explicit scenes from a Czech porn movie on a TV screen behind news anchor Peter Dahlgren.

The monitor - one of many on the wall of a control room visible behind the studio - normally shows other news channels during broadcasts.

But staffers who earlier in the evening had watched a sports event on cable channel Canal Plus - which often shows X-rated films after midnight - had forgotten to switch it back, said news director Per Yng.

"This is highly embarrassing and unfortunate," Yng said. "It must not happen again."

A producer quickly spotted the sex scenes and ran into the control room and turned off the monitor, Yng said.

He said there had been no complaints from viewers about the mishap, but "enormous interest from media."

Swedish tabloids on Monday poked fun at the steamy broadcast, jokingly changing the name of the show -- Rapport -- to "Rapporn."

Magnus Akerlund, who oversees the hourly news updates, told tabloid Expressen he was "shocked and dismayed" at the mistake.

"It's a huge blunder by us," he said.

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