Details
Legal instruments & key provisions
| Legal instrument | Key provision |
|---|---|
| Remand Imprisonment Act (tutkintavankeuslaki/häktningslag) | A person remanded due to an offence shall be taken to a prison functioning as a remand prison closest to the court considering the charges or, for special reasons, to another prison functioning as a remand prison. |
| Imprisonment Act (vankeuslaki/fängelselag) | When placing a post-trial prisoner in prison, the following shall be taken into account in accordance with the sentence plan: the prisoner’s place of residence, the prisoner’s possibilities to maintain contacts with their close relatives or other close persons, the prisoner’s age, gender and state of health, the number of sentences imposed, earlier criminal history, the prisoner’s own wish, and the possibilities to place the prisoner in the activity determined in the sentence plan. When making a placement decision, the possibilities of the prisoner to attend to matters relating to the enforcement of imprisonment in their own language shall also be considered. |
NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM RECOMMENDATIONS
| Year | Recommendation | Report |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | The Deputy-Ombudsman stated that Kuopio Prison acted unlawfully when remand prisoners were placed in the same ward with prisoners serving sentences. The Central Administration of the Criminal Sanctions Agency had already drawn attention to this in the inspection conducted on the prison in 2017 and stated that the prison must comply with the Remand Imprisonment Act. The Deputy-Ombudsman now required the prison to change its practice of placing remand prisoners in the ward to comply with the Act without delay. During the NPM visit, it was revealed that some remand prisoners had even been accommodated in the same cell with a prisoner serving a sentence. The Deputy-Ombudsman did not consider this possible even if the remand prisoner consented to it. The visit also revealed that none of the senior criminal sanctions officials responsible for making decisions on the placement of prisoners was separately responsible for the placement of remand prisoners. The Deputy-Ombudsman considered it possible that this may have contributed to the prison not having taken into account the requirements of the Remand Imprisonment Act. | Report details |