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Crime Trends in Finland

NCJ Number
241793
Date Published
2013
Length
520 pages
Annotation
This report from the National Institute of Legal Policy in Helsinki, Finland, presents information on crime trends in Finland for the period 2003 - 2012, as well as information on the criminal justice system in the country.
Abstract
This report presents information on crime trends in Finland for the period 2003 through 2012. Highlights of the findings include the following: for the 10-year period of the study, homicides in the country varied between 89 and 144 per year, with the annual homicide rate being 1.6 per 100,000 residents; in 2012, the number of recorded robberies was 1,616, significantly below the 10-year average of 1,744; and since reaching record levels in the 1990s, the number of recorded thefts has decreased in the 2000s, with 139,000 crimes reported in 2012, an 8 percent-decrease from 2011. Additional categories of crimes include assaults and attempted homicides, sex offenses, thefts of motor vehicles, embezzlement, fraud, damage to property, tax offenses and economic offenses, drunken driving, other traffic offenses, narcotic offenses, juvenile crime, women as perpetrators and victims of crime, and foreigners, immigrants and crime. The report also includes information on trends in the criminal justice system in Finland. Topics covered in this part of the report include the system of sanctions used in the country's criminal justice system, the fall of the prison rate in Finland between 1950 and 2000, the use of different sentencing alternatives, the use of community service, and sentencing statistics for the period 1992 through 2011. Tables, figures, and references