Criminal sanctions and the crime drop: A register-based study from Finland

• In Event: European Developmental and Life-course Criminology Working Group, Panel 1: Criminal careers

Abstract

The Finnish criminal justice system uses ladder model of punishments that vary in their severity: unconditional and conditional prison sentence, community service, monitoring sentence and fines. The numbers of these penalties imposed by the courts have decreased since the mid-1990’s, but less is known about the specifics of this decrease. As many other countries, Finland has experienced an overall declining crime trend, but it has been argued that during this period crime has become more concentrated to persistent offenders. Prior research has indicated that a substantial proportion of crimes is committed by a small number of active offenders. However, it is unclear how this is reflected in the criminal justice system and whether there are specific groups of offenders that burden the justice system considerably. We employ Finnish longitudinal register data comprising individuals born in Finland between 1980 and 1990 with at least one criminal sanction and follow-up until age 30. As in research on criminal careers, our objective is to study the transitions between sanctions and the possible differences in convictions between cohorts. The study of these sentence trajectories is fundamental for recognizing possible trends and changes between the cohorts, namely, which groups have disappeared from the criminal justice system, and whether the criminal careers have become more severe. Preliminary results will be presented.

Authors

• Aaro Beuker, University of Helsinki

• Karoliina Suonpää, University of Helsinki

• Antti Latvala, University of Helsinki

• Mikko Aaltonen, Faculty of Law, University of Eastern Finland

• Pekka Martikainen, Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Finland