Finland's criminal justice system is described in the areas of philosophy, administration, operations, sentencing, sanctions, and trends; the correctional system is outlined under the topics of philosophy, policy, administration, conditions, operations, evaluation, and trends. A return to the neoclassical scheme of general prevention through criminal law is evident in the development and current state of the Finnish criminal justice system; the focus is on the offense and away from the offender, although the emphasis is on the symbolic value of punishment and certainty of sanctions, not on the severity of punishments given. With the demise of the rehabilitation philosophy, emphasis is given to deterrence and uniformity of sentencing. Because of resource restrictions, Finland has been forced to adopt a rigid cost-benefit approach in the use of penal and social resources. However, inmate rights are given high priority in budgetary decisions. Penal reform is focusing on the development of less restrictive prison regimes, notably open prisons, and normalization of institutions. There are also attempts to minimize the number of inmates through the use of traditional and novel noninstitutional sentences. Appended are statistics, a list of external factors affecting the criminal justice system, organizational charts, reform proposals, an update, and nine references. An identical report in French is provided.