Introduction

The introduction summarizes how researching ethnicity and race has increased our understanding of prison social world. This central role of ethnicity and race has been documented particularly in Anglo-American prisons. As the Finnish prison population has undergone a rapid increase in the number of foreign nationals, the Finnish prisons provide an interesting standpoint to analyse the ongoing processes where social dynamics are formed and negotiated. The introduction discusses how the European and Finnish immigration histories and Nordic criminal policy affect approaching ethnicity and race in prison.