Enforcement of community sanctions

Community sanctions are sentences that are served outside prison. Their aim is to support sentenced persons’ social coping and ability to lead a crime-free life. Community sanctions are enforced by 12 probation offices operating in 23 localities across Finland.

According to an international definition, community sanctions and measures mean sanctions and measures which maintain offenders in the community and involve some restrictions on their liberty through the imposition of conditions and obligations.

Community sanctions used as alternatives to imprisonment are community service, monitoring sentence and conditional imprisonment with supervision. Other community sanctions include juvenile punishment, supervision of conditionally released prisoners and supervision term of combination sentence.

Probationary liberty under supervision is similar in nature to community sanctions. Its enforcement requires cooperation between the prison and the probation office, especially when a conditionally released prisoner is placed under supervision.

The work with persons sentenced to community sanctions is primarily carried out by the staff of the probation offices, i.e., senior probation officials, probation officials and supervision patrol instructors. Different stages of the enforcement process also involve prison staff, other staff of the Prison and Probation Service and cooperation partners.

Pre-sentence report

The prosecutor or the court requests a probation office to prepare a pre-sentence report before trial if a suspect is charged with an offence that is likely to result in community service, monitoring sentence, conditional imprisonment with supervision or juvenile punishment. The suspect or the legal counsel may also request the pre-sentence report for serious reasons.

The pre-sentence report assesses the suspect’s ability to serve a community sanction. The probation office invites the suspect to an interview to evaluate the life situation and motivation to serve a community sanction. In addition, the probation office gathers relevant information from other authorities.

If a community sanction is deemed suitable for the suspect based on the pre-sentence report, the probation office includes a sentence plan in the pre-sentence report. The sentence plan provides a preliminary outline of the content of the sanction.

Supervisor

Once the court’s judgment becomes final, the probation office appoints a supervisor for the sentenced person. Supervisors are officials of the probation office and support persons serving a community sanction throughout the enforcement of their sentence.

If needed, the probation office may assign a private person as an assistant supervisor. Assistant supervisors must have appropriate training and work experience or otherwise be deemed suitable for the task. They work under the guidance of the supervisors.

Specified sentence plan

The supervisor contacts the sentenced person to begin enforcement. Together, they draw up a specified sentence plan.

The sentence plan includes the content, goals, means, start date and schedule of the community sanction. Depending on the type of community sanction, the plan contains supervision appointments, support measures, places for serving the community sanction, duties included in the obligation to participate, the contents of other activities, and other regulations and conditions. The content of each community sanction is described in more detail on their respective pages (see links below).

Supervision patrols

Supervision patrol instructors support and supervise persons serving community sanctions through home visits. The aim is to improve or maintain the persons’ ability to live a crime-free life. The sentenced persons are supported to complete their community sanction, which includes ensuring that they are sober and at the required place at the required time.