Concepts and definitions
- Ban on animal keeping
A person who is convicted for an animal welfare offence or petty animal welfare offence may at the same time be banned from keeping or caring for animals or otherwise seeing to the welfare of animals. A ban on animal keeping may also be imposed on a person who is convicted for an animal welfare violation and who is to be deemed unfit or unable to see to the welfare of animals. The ban may be temporary or permanent. The ban may pertain to the keeping of given animal species or of animals in general.
- Community service
An offender who is sentenced to a fixed term of unconditional imprisonment of at most eight months shall be sentenced instead to community service. The sentence comprises (20-200 hours of) unpaid community service for the public good to be performed during one's free time. If the suspended imprisonment exceeds one year, an ancillary community service order for at least 20 and at most 90 hours may be imposed.
- Confinement to barracks
Confinement to barracks is a specific punishment imposed on a soldier or other person subject to chapter 45 of the Penal Code (11-15 days, 25 days for more than one offence).
- Convertible
Unconditional imprisonment is convertible into community service, if the sentence is at most 8 months in length and the person has not been convicted for a non-military service offence or for refusal to serve in the military.
- Corporate fine
A corporation, foundation or other legal entity in whose operations an offence has been committed may be sentenced to a corporate fine if such a sanction has been provided in this Code. A corporate fine is imposed as a lump sum. The corporate fine shall be at least EUR 850 and at most EUR 850,000.
- Detention
Detention is a specific punishment imposed on a soldier or other person subject to chapter 45 of the Penal Code (1-30 days, 40 days for more than one offence). Detention is enforced at the main guard or where the detainee is otherwise under guard.
- Disciplinary fine
A disciplinary fine is a specific punishment imposed on a soldier or other person subject to chapter 45 of the Penal Code (for 1-30 days, 40 days for more than one offence). The monetary amount of the disciplinary fine is one-fifth of the average daily earnings of the person being fined, however at least equal to the highest daily allowance of a person performing military duty under the Conscription Act (1950/452). The monetary amount of disciplinary fine for one day of a person performing military duty under the Conscription Act or the Act on Women's Voluntary Military Service (1995/194) equals his/her daily allowance or, if he/she is not receiving such daily allowance, equal to the highest possible allowance of a person performing military duty under the Conscription Act.
- Dismissal
Dismissal is a special penalty for public officials. It is never sentenced as the only penalty.
A public official, a person elected to a public office or a person who exercises public authority who is sentenced to imprisonment for life shall also be dismissed from office. He/she shall be dismissed also if he/she is sentenced to imprisonment for a fixed period that is at least two years, unless the court deems that the offence does not demonstrate that the sentenced person is unsuitable to serve as a public official or to attend to a public function.
If a person referred to above is sentenced for an intentional offence to imprisonment for a period that is less than two years, he/she may at the same time be dismissed from office if the offence demonstrates that he/she is apparently unsuitable to serve as a public official or to attend to the public function. However, a member of the representative body of a public corporation who has been elected in a general election shall not be dismissed from said office by virtue of the above provisions. In cases referred to above the dismissal comprises the forfeiture of the public office, function or the public offices and functions that the offender has at the time when the sentence is passed.
Dismissal from office is mentioned in a more restrictive form as an additional sentence for most offences in office (Penal Code, chapter 40). In such cases it comprises dismissal from the office or public function in which the offence was committed. If the public official has transferred from the office in which the offence was committed to another corresponding office, the dismissal comprises the forfeiture of that office. Dismissal is a discretionary penalty in four provisions and mandatory in two aggravated cases.
- Driving ban
A driving ban is an order with which a court of justice or the police cancel a person's driving licence. A driving licence corresponding to the vehicle class is required for driving nearly all motor vehicles.
A court of justice must impose a driving ban for a maximum of five years on a driver of a motor vehicle if he/she is found guilty of aggravated endangering of traffic safety, drunken driving or aggravated drunken driving. Unless general interest requires otherwise, a driving ban can also be conditional if the right to drive is necessary for a person's occupation or if there is some other particularly weighty reason and the offence has not endangered another person's safety. The probationary period of a conditional driving ban is 1 to 3 years.
- Fine
A fine is a punishment consisting of paying a specified sum to the state. A fine is passed as unit fines (also known as day-fines). Their minimum number is 1 and the maximum 120 (1-240 for several offences). The amount of a unit fine is based on taxation data on monthly income after the EUR 225 deduction for basic consumption. One unit fine equals 1/60 of monthly income. Maintenance liability lowers the amount by EUR 3 per person. Taxable property of at least EUR 85,000 increases the amount of the unit fine by EUR 3, and taxable property of at least EUR 170,000 by EUR 6. The lowest possible unit fine is EUR 6. The total amount of the fine is the number of unit fines times the amount of a unit fine, but a fine for speeding must always equal at least the highest possible summary penal fee passed for speeding.
- Hunting prohibition
A person convicted of a hunting offence, who through his/her actions has demonstrated manifest heedlessness of the provisions on hunting, may be prohibited from hunting for at least one and at most five years. While prohibited from hunting, a person may not hunt or serve as the hunting manager.
- Imprisonment
Imprisonment is a penalty consisting of the deprivation of liberty for a period of time. A sentence of imprisonment shall be passed either for a fixed period or for life. A sentence of imprisonment for a fixed period shall be at least fourteen days and at most twelve years or, when sentencing to a joint punishment, at most fifteen years. A court of justice shall impose a punishment within the sentence scale set by the legislator for each offence.
Suspended imprisonment: A sentence of imprisonment for a fixed period not exceeding two years may, under certain conditions, be suspended. When a sentence of imprisonment is suspended, the enforcement of the sentence is postponed for a probation period (of one to three years). If not ordered to be enforced, the sentence shall lapse.
If a sentence of imprisonment is not suspended, it is unconditional. An offender who is sentenced to a fixed term of unconditional imprisonment of at most eight months shall, under certain conditions, be sentenced instead to community service.
- Judgment Pronouncement and Collection System
The Judgment Pronouncement and Collection System is a data transfer system for transferring data on the criminal convictions imposed by courts of first instance and courts of appeal to authorities who need such data, such as Statistics Finland. The register of criminal cases belonging to the Judgment Pronouncement System is maintained by the Legal register centre.
- Juvenile punishment
Juvenile punishment refers to a sentence for an offence committed by a person under the age of 18. It consists of supervisory meetings, different activities and programmes furthering integration in society, as well as support and guidance.
- Legal Register Centre
The Legal Register Centre belongs to the administrative sector of the Ministry of Justice and is the authority which maintains registers on enforcement and judicial administration. Its tasks are set out in the Act on the Legal Register Centre (1995/1287).
- Loss of military rank
A person sentenced for treason or high treason, or sentenced for another offence to imprisonment for at least two years, shall be stripped of his/her military rank, unless this, with regard to the nature of the offence, its causes and effects and the other consequences of the loss of military rank to the offender, is to be deemed unreasonable.
However, no one shall be stripped of the lowest military rank.
- Offence
An offence is an act or a dereliction for which a punishment is decreed by law.
- Penalty payment
A penalty payment is a coercive measure by which a court or an administrative authority orders someone to do something or desist from doing something on pain of paying a penalty. However, in these statistics a person or entity sentenced to a penalty payment is included in the class "found guilty".
- Principal offence on which the sentence is based
The principal offence on which the sentence is based is relevant to the recording of data in statistics. According to the rule, each defendant or convicted person is described by the most serious offence under the severest punishment decision category of the court.
The concept of a principal offence is defined in detail in the quality description of the statistics.
- Punishment
The general punishments (which can be imposed on anyone subject to the Penal Code) are summary penal fine, fine, conditional imprisonment, community service, and unconditional imprisonment.
Juvenile punishment is a specific sentence for offenders under the age of 18. The special punishments for public officials are warning and dismissal from office. The disciplinary punishments for soldiers are detention, confinement to barracks, disciplinary fine and warning.
A corporation, foundation or other legal entity may be sentenced to a corporate fine.
In these statistics, also a person or entity sentenced to a penalty payment is included in the class "sentenced".For example parking fines, overload fees, penalty fares in public transport and TV licence inspection fees are not punishments under the Penal Code but administrative fines.
- Summary penal fee
A summary penal fee is a pecuniary penalty of a fixed amount and less severe than a fine. The use of the summary penal fee is prescribed by the Penal Code, and the summary penal fees payable for various infractions shall be provided by a Governmental Decree. In mainland Finland the summary penal fee has eight grades ranging from EUR 10 to EUR 115 and on the Åland Islands it has six grades ranging from EUR 7 to EUR 70.
A summary penal fee can be imposed on the basis of
- mild infractions of the Road Traffic Act or the Vehicles Act
- mild breach of the Waste Act prohibition against littering
- neglecting to pay the fishing management fee or the lure fishing fee as decreed in the Fishing Act, or neglecting to produce in time a receipt proving that such a fee has been paid.
- breach of the Public Order Act and mild infraction of regulations on items and substances suitable for harming others.
A summary penal fee is imposed by the police, a customs official or a border guard.
- Summary penal judgment
In summary penal judgment proceedings it is possible to impose a fine and a forfeiture of maximum EUR 1,000 for an offence for which the applicable provisions do not, under the relevant circumstances, set a more severe punishment than a fine or maximum six months imprisonment, or for breaking a legally confirmed prohibition reinforced with a penalty payment. Following this procedure requires the assent of both the injured party and the party to whom the summary penal order has been given. A summary penal order is given by the police, a customs official or a border guard and the summary penal judgment is given by the prosecutor.
- Waiving of punishment
As a part of the system of sanctions, the waiving of punishment refers to a court decision in which a punishment has been waived by virtue of specific grounds written into the law. Waiving of punishment always contains a confirmation of the offender's culpability and must therefore be distinguished from an acquittal, which is based on the dismissal of charged due to lacking evidence. The waiving of charges can be seen as the least severe punishment imposable by the court, even if the point technically is that punishment is waived.
In statistics this group comprises the cases in which a court of justice has imposed the sanction by stating that punishment for the offence is waived. Offenders for whom a punishment has been waived belong to the group "found guilty" but not to "sentenced persons".
- Warning
A warning is a special punishment for public officials, soldiers or other persons subject to chapter 45 of the Penal Code. An official can be sentenced to a warning only for negligent violation of official duties. A warning sentenced to an official is registered in his/her personal file and a warning sentenced to a soldier is enforced by publication in the order of the day.
Official Statistics of Finland (OSF):
Prosecutions, sentences and punishments [e-publication].
Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 27.5.2012].
Access method: http://www.tilastokeskus.fi/til/syyttr/kas_en.html.
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