New and Old Prison Philosophies: Finland

For Finland’s prison system heavy bars, armed guards, and strict living regimens are a thing of the past for those incarcerated. Approximately thirty years ago Finland adopted a very lenient prison philosophy called an “open prison system” and did away with their traditional soviet style prison facilities. An open prison system uses high tech digital cameras for monitoring prisoner activity and uses almost half the number of guards used in traditional prisons. The general concept of an open prison system is to develop criminals into socially acceptable members of society by providing more opportunity for prisoners to receive education, job training and counseling. This type of justice system addresses the fact that prisoners often become more aggressive criminals and outcastes of society if placed in a traditional prison system and become more of a criminal threat to society when they are released. Providing prisoners with rehabilitation rather than punishment is one of the main constituents in this judicial movement and has proven to be very effective. Finland's incarceration rate is just 52 per 100,000 people, less than half Canada's rate of 119 per 100,000 people and a tiny fraction of the American rate of 702.

I feel the economic significance behind these prison systems is that Finland is able to save money by housing and feeding fewer prisoners with tax dollars. Rehabilitating prisoners so that they may return to the workforce instead of implementing harsh punishments that may cause prisoners to becoming more harden criminals is also beneficial to Finland’s GDP. In the United States, According to Department of Correction Statistics, more than 5,000 inmates last year were serving sentences for non-trafficking drug charges with an average cost of nearly $27,000 to keep an inmate in prison for one year. The savings that could be made from not incarcerating such inmates would be very significant and provide good reason to rethink the existing prison system.

http://newpol.org/node/52
http://www.gastongazette.com/articles/way-44383-judicious-prison.html
http://www.pfi.org/cjr/human-rights-documents/gentle-justice-analysis-of-open-prison-systems-in-finland.-a-way-to-the-future

[Picture of dorm style jail cells in a Finish open prison facility]