[vidarh]

Causing minor disturbances to get thrown in a cell overnight when it's as coldest, I might buy, but this sounds like an urban legend to me. Maybe a result of someone "getting lucky" that way and people jumping to conclusions.

In neither Norway or Sweden is it easy to time when you will get put into prison, as the time it takes before a case goes to court is highly variable, and the time it takes from a sentence is handed down until you are told to show up to serve that sentence is also very variable, and dependent on how crowded prison happens to be. If this was/is a common practice, then that itself would increase the odds of mis-timing the sentencing time by months.

In Norway there has been cases where the time from sentencing to being called in to serve the sentence have been multiple years. There is a system where you may ask to serve shorter sentences (3 months or shorter) immediately, but this is not at all guaranteed and would quickly be overwhelmed by any "increased demand" during the winter months.

(And remaining locked up pending trial and sentencing, as an alternative to "fix" the timing issue, is unusual unless you're suspected of something likely to result in far more than 4-6 months in prison)