Julia Korkman in Demokraatti: Harsher punishments alone will not solve youth crime

Julia Korkman was interviewed by Demokraatti about Finnish criminal policy, with a focus on youth criminality, and she said effective and humane criminal policy can be one and the same, and that decision-makers should resist the lure of populism.

Youth criminality: Korkman warned that Europe is moving towards tougher punishments, and Finland has politicians calling for harsher penalties, even for lowering the age of criminal responsibility. She argued that locking up under-18s should be a last resort and that new, evidence-based preventive approaches should be favoured instead. Consequences should also come quickly, since long legal processes are a major problem in Finland. She pointed to Estonia, where a model combining support and monitoring measures, with professionals assessing the young person’s whole situation and involving them in the process, shows promising early results. She also criticised the strain on Finland’s prosecution and court system, and emphasised strengthening the expertise in the police working on distinct topics, would be an investment well worth.

Politicans have discussed Sweden as example, but Korkman notes that all Swedish experts have warned against the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility, noting it does not solve the problem of youth crime. Sweden’s prison population has risen from about 5,000 to 8,000, and PhD resesarcher Sigrid Nikka from the University of Lund, who is currently doing research in the topic, projects roughly 40,000 by 2034 if all planned measures go ahead. According to Korkman and her colleagues at HEUNI, prisons are a poor general response to crime. Psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders are very common among prisoners, and Finnish prisons are already among the country’s largest psychiatric care units. Korkman said Finland should not follow Sweden and should keep its rational, humane criminal policy and prison system, which were built in the 1960s and 70s. She added that there are exceptions: for some individuals, deeply entrenched in crime, imprisonment can sometimes be the only available solution. Korkman also notes that the financial costs of prison should be weighed in – costs are high, but results meagre.