The document suggests that Finland’s declining prison population resulted at least in part from changes in the ideology of criminal policy as well as legislative reforms and revised sentencing policies. Among the reforms and sentencing alternatives were preventive detention, fine, conditional sentence, and community service. The document discusses specific treatment for young offenders, and the enforcement of prison sentences and the parole system. It also examines other tentative explanations for the declining prison population, criminality and the prison rate (including observations on sentencing patterns and criminality in Finland, 1950-1994; and in Scandinavia, 1950-1997), prison rates today, and elements for a successful program for decarceration. Figures, tables, appendixes, references