The Problem of Juvenile Crime and the Making of Criminal Law in Finland,1862–1889

Abstract

This article describes procedures leading to the establishing of the Finnish Criminal Law of 1889 and, more particularly, discusses the changing interpretations of and societal reactions to juvenile crime as part of governing the minors. Legislation—including a specific understanding of juvenile crime as moral depravity—was finally provided as the interplay between the different mechanisms of social activity. Legislation was passed through when the conditions on all the essential levels of historical time turned favorable, forming a certain type of complex in governing juvenile crime.