A prison cell for minors in Finland has a blue mattress, a television and a storage cabinet. The room was shown in an October report by public broadcaster Yle, whose journalists visited a section of Vantaa Prison for detainees under 18. The visit offers a rare look at youth detention as Finland debates how to deal with offences committed by younger children.
A prison unit for minors inside Vantaa
Vantaa Prison, near Helsinki, is a closed prison used mainly for people held on remand. It includes a dedicated unit for minors, according to the Finnish Prison and Probation Agency. The room photographed by Yle belongs to that unit, not to a separate prison exclusively for children.
Remand detention is different from serving a prison sentence after a final conviction. Finland currently sets the age of criminal responsibility at 15. Children under that age cannot be sentenced for criminal offences. Instead, police may investigate their actions and notify child welfare services. Children can still be liable to pay compensation for harm they cause.
More criminal acts involving children under 15
According to Statistics Finland figures reported by Yle, more than 10,000 children under 15 were recorded in connection with suspected criminal acts in 2025, roughly twice as many as a decade earlier. Police investigated nearly 18,000 incidents involving children in that age group. These are police records, not criminal convictions.
The increase is also visible in violent crime data. Statistics Finland reported that under-15s accounted for more than 15% of people recorded in connection with investigated assaults in 2025, compared with less than 4% in 2015.
Finland is considering a lower criminal responsibility age
After Sweden approved a temporary reduction to 14 for particularly serious offences, Finland’s Justice Minister Leena Meri said she hoped her country would consider a similar measure. Sweden’s exception, previously covered by NordiskPost, is limited to serious crimes and is intended to last five years.
Finland’s Ministry of Justice launched a review of its own threshold, with findings expected by the end of 2026. Finland has not lowered its criminal responsibility age. Any future change would raise the possibility of younger children entering the criminal justice system.
What Denmark’s experiment found
Denmark reduced its minimum age from 15 to 14 between 2010 and 2012, before reversing the decision. Research presented by Aarhus University found no general deterrent effect. Among affected 14-year-olds whose cases were processed by the criminal courts, researchers also found higher reoffending rates and worse subsequent educational outcomes.
For Finland, the question is not only whether children could enter cells like the one at Vantaa, but whether lowering the age of criminal responsibility would prevent offences in the first place.
