The Rise of the Crime Victim and Punitive Policies? Changes to the Legal Regulation of Intimate Partner Violence in Finland

Abstract

This article examines intimate partnership violence as a question of criminal justice policy in Finland, and contributes to criminological discussions regarding oft-stated connections between the politicization of the victim, the treatment of offenders, and repressive criminal justice policies. In this discussion, legislation aiming to regulate and prevent violence against women has often been utilized as an example of such punitive policies. Although criminal policies in Nordic countries differ significantly from more punitive Anglophone policies, punitive tendencies, it has been argued, have increased in the former, too. This article analyzes the change in legal regulations and the criminal political status of intimate partner violence in Finland between 1990 and 2004, while examining the juxtaposition of victims and offenders alongside repressive demands.

Attribution of responsibility for sexual crimes beyond individual actors – construction of responsibility of offenders, victims and society in laypersons’ explanations

“…However, the integration of the crime victim perspective into Finnish criminal justice policy happened rather recently, preceded by critical social debate related in particular to intimate partner violence (e.g. Kotanen, 2018). Feminist researchers have pointed out that the acknowledgement of the physical and sexual integrity of women and their protection has been a slowly progressive process, yet the situation has improved significantly since the beginning of the 21th century (e.g.…”

“…Feminist researchers have pointed out that the acknowledgement of the physical and sexual integrity of women and their protection has been a slowly progressive process, yet the situation has improved significantly since the beginning of the 21th century (e.g. Kotanen, 2018; Nousiainen and Pentikäinen, 2013). Currently, the Act on Sexual Crimes is again under pressure for change in Finland.…”

Rape in the Nordic Countries

“…This tendency also presents an interesting contrast to the feminist social activism towards violence against women that started at the beginning of the 1990s, which was the main domestic motivation behind the legal change that consequently launched a wider process of legal reforms, particularly in relation to IPV (e.g. Kotanen, 2013Kotanen, , 2018. In general, however, this feminist redefinition of gender-neutral domestic violence to gender-based violence clearly had some influence on legal argumentation at the time.…”

“…Similar reluctance by the Ministry of Justice also appeared later in the 1990s in relation to the increasing demands for legal regulation of IPV. For example, for several years before the enactment of legislation to introduce the restraining order in 1998, feminist activists, the media and MPs had pressured the Ministry of Justice to act (Kotanen, 2018). The ministry's reluctance seems to have been based largely on a lack of recognition of the scale and prevalence of IPV as well as an understanding that such violence was a problem of social rather than criminal justice policy (Niemi-Kiesiläinen, 2004;Kotanen, 2013).…”

Attitudes and public punishment preferences: Finnish results of Scandinavian sense of justice research

“…Violence against women is seen as an increasingly serious social problem (see e.g. Fagerlund & Kääriäinen, 2018) that many people want to address with more severe penalties and Finland does not make an exception in this respect (Kotanen, 2017). This also reflects the contradictive and multidimensional nature of penal attitudes.…”