NCJ Number
80655
Date Published
1980
Length
16 pages
Annotation
When meting out sentences, Finnish courts must ensure that the punishment is a just and fit response to the crime, reflecting its gravity and seriousness. The sentence should also be appropriate retribution for injury inflicted on the victim.
Abstract
These are the major tenets of the 1976 sentencing guidelines stipulating that crime types should be classified according to seriousness and danger posed and set in a schedule of all crimes. Sentences would be scaled to gravity. Only three aggravating and mitigating factors would affect the standard sentence. Aggravating circumstances include premeditated and planned crime, crime committed for an organized group dedicated to profiting from crime, and crime committed on contract. Mitigating factors occur when the offender commits the crime under coercion or threat, in a fit of passion, or from some 'humanistic' motive (such as euthanasia to prevent a person's continued pain). An additional mitigating factor is the offender's apparent attempt to aid the victim or to lessen the ill effects of the crime after having committed it. For example, an offender who injures a victim might call the hospital for him. The new sentencing guidelines, although feasible in theory, must be subjected to practice before adjustments can be made to perfect the language.