I think in one of the Scandinavian countries, people cannot be charged or punished for attempted or actual escapes from prison, jail, or custody, as the desire for freedom is assumed to be a natural human motivation.

And the desire for power, money, or sexual gratification are not "natural"? You could justify nearly any crime by saying your motivation was "natural"

Trying to escape from prison is victimless. Scams, thefts and rapes have victims. Some argue that crimes without victims like using drugs are not crimes. They, of course, could be illegal and result in fines and related but not in restrictions of liberty like imprisonment.

"A victimless crime is not a crime" is a much more compelling argument than "the crime had a 'natural' motivation".

I'm not arguing one way or the other whether escaping from prison should be criminalized. I'm just saying the stated argument is really bad.

I agree.

So if an escapee is captured again they're merely subject to serve out the remainder of their time with no time added for the attempt?

In this framework, yes. But see, even if no time is added to the sentence he may lose eligibility for early release. And he will be prosecuted for any crime committed in the process. Look, I'm not advocating for A or B. Just being descriptive.

One of TPB founders was on Darknet Diaries recently saying this about Sweden. I wonder if it is true.

This is true in the US as well, at least where I live. Judges specifically inform the jury that they cannot treat a police officer’s testimony with any more weight or as any more correct than any other witness.

Whether juries actually pay attention to this or not I cannot say.

I just had jury duty in one of the most liberal states in the union.

I had the prosecuting lawyer explicitly ask us during jury selection if we would "take into account that police officers have training which [we] wouldn't have access to as a civilian." And repeated it during the trial. All without a peep from the judge. So YMMV on that.

On an unrelated note, the prosecuting lawyer then proceeded to systematically eliminate exclusively women and minorities from the jury, and specifically removed every woman of color. Which I'm sure was a total coincidence.