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Examining Sanction Type and Drug Offender Recidivism: A Register-Based Study in Finland

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Abstract

Nordic countries incarcerate offenders at much lower rates in comparison with incarceration rates in the United States, and reincarcerate fewer people per capita. Non-custodial alternatives to sanctions, including fines and community service, are used extensively in Finland to reduce negative effects of institutionalization and subsequent disadvantage caused by incarceration. The nature of drug-involved offenders within the Finnish system is reviewed in light of current research about the effectiveness of incarceration and deterrence-based approaches for drug offenders. Employing a 2014 sample from register data (consisting of official government records) of drug offenders in Finland with a 3-year recidivism period, this study utilizes a genetic matching procedure to compare offenders who received fines, conditional sentences (probation), or incarceration. While recognizing that numerous confounding variables affect incarceration, we compare a matched sample of drug offenders and the sanctions they have received from the Finland judicial system to determine whether offenders who initially receive a fine or a conditional sentence reenter the correctional system at different rates than those who are incarcerated. After matching, results found no significant differences between offenders receiving incarceration sentences or those who received noncustodial sentences (fine, or conditional sentence) for general and drug-related recidivism. These results are presented within the context of the Finnish corrections system in order to inform the criminal justice community about culture, incarceration, and process differences that could positively affect working with drug offenders in other localities.

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Notes

  1. The median length of incarceration sentence was 545 days. However, in the Finnish system, offenders typically spend half of this time in a custodial setting (closed prison) then move to home (conditional incarceration) or to an open prison where they are able to reoffend.

  2. The 21 cases, where incarceration was replaced with community service were excluded from the data as well as one monitoring sentence resulting in a sample size of N = 721.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

    Bryan Lee Miller & Shelagh Dorn

  2. Faculty of Social Science, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Noora Ellonen & Atte Oksanen

  3. Departmentof Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

    John H. Boman IV

  4. Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Karoliina Suonpää & Olli-Pekka Aaltonen

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  1. Bryan Lee Miller
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  2. Noora Ellonen
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  4. Shelagh Dorn
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Correspondence to Bryan Lee Miller.

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Miller, B.L., Ellonen, N., Boman, J.H. et al. Examining Sanction Type and Drug Offender Recidivism: A Register-Based Study in Finland. Am J Crim Just 47, 836–854 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09592-8

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