The study concentrates on the patterns of criminal homicide in Finland and attempts to analyze the social interaction and the disputes that lead to lethal conflicts. Study data were obtained from the computerized database which includes all crimes reported to the police in Finland, including all homicides that became known to the police in 1996. Police report data include quantitative, structured data such as the age and sex of the suspect and the victim and an open-ended narrative appendix. The narratives, which include some of the study's important variables such as the victim-offender relationship and the type of conflict, varied greatly in quality and content. The study observes that Finnish homicides, in the overwhelming majority of cases, are committed by and against male members of what can be called a class of male social pariahs or outcasts. These men have been displaced from central social institutions such as marriage and work. They spend much of their time in drinking groups, or trying to secure something to drink. Some of them live on the fringes of what can be called the criminal underworld. The study suggests further research on the number of males living in the marginalized social milieu, and naturalistic and ethnographic analyses of that milieu. Figures, notes, table