Suspected hate crime reported to the police in Finland each year

Organisation

Police University College (Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu).

Start and end date

Start date:

1997

End date:

ongoing (as of May 2021).

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

The police.

Funding

National – funding is part of the budget of the Police University College – each year the project receives funding of approximately € 60,000.

Objectives

• Collect and analyse national police statistics regarding suspected hate crimes in Finland.
• Provide the national situational picture of hate crimes in Finland.
• Provide background information for national strategic and operational decision making in combating hate crime.

Outputs

• Police University College’s information regarding suspected cases of incitement to hatred – in English.
• Poliisin tietoon tullut viharikollisuus Suomessa 2019 (Hate crime recorded by the police in Finland in 2019) – in Finnish, with abstract in English.
• Hyvät käytännöt vihatekojen tunnistamisessa ja ennalta estämisessä (Good practices for identifying and preventing acts of hatred: A guide for police officers and stakeholders) – in Finnish, with abstract in English.

Description

A search of police reports in the national police database is conducted using a list of approximately 350 keywords and categories related to crime, such as ‘discrimination’ and ‘workplace discrimination’. Police officers also have the option of using the hate crime flag in their reports, which helps to highlight potential cases of hate crime.

Drawing on these data, the researcher establishes statistics for suspected hate crimes that have been reported to the police. As most cases have already been closed by the time a possible hate crime bias is identified by the researcher, the research is carried out solely to provide hate crime statistics.

The implementation process is as follows.

• The research is conducted by one researcher, with assistance from a project manager.
• The search is carried out using a search engine that is designed specifically for the police, which scans official police reports nationwide.
• The initial searches generate ‘raw results’ of around 8,000–10,000 police reports per year.
• The researcher reads these reports and identifies suspected hate crimes. Normally, around 10 % of the reports examined have a suspected bias motive.
• These are recorded and categorised according to the motive, such as ethnicity or nationality, religion or belief, sexual orientation, sexual identity or transgender identity, or disability.
• Of these identified cases, the researcher establishes official hate crime statistics (which consist of approximately 40 or 50 different statistical tables) and writes an annual report.
• This report is published by the Police University College as one of its own publications. In addition, a press release is distributed on publication.

Critical success factors

• The identification of suspected hate crimes depends significantly on how case reports are written by police officers, as cases cannot be followed through the justice system, that is from the police through the prosecutor to the court.
• The backgrounds of the victims/offenders can be derived only from what is written in the police reports. However, this information can be determined only from information provided on nationality and place of birth. There is no separate recording criterion for ethnic background.
• The practice is the only reliable method for identifying suspected hate crimes that are reported to the police. A hate crime flag does exist in the system; however, this is an optional measure and is not actively used by police officers.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

Actors involved in design:

• Ministry of Justice (Oikeusministeriö)
• National Police Board (Poliisihallitus)
• Ministry of the Interior (Sisäministeriö)
• Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Suojelupoliisi)
• European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, which is affiliated with the United Nations.

Actors involved in implementation:

• Police University College (Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu)
• researcher: Jenita Rauta
• senior researcher: Jarmo Houtsonen.

Monitoring and evaluation

A brief annual evaluation is conducted by a steering group. The results are then analysed by the researcher to determine trends in the data that might be new or indicative of something significant.

Problems encountered by the researcher during the project are then discussed to find appropriate solutions, for instance possible ways of discerning ethnicity from written text when most of the victims are born in Finland and are of Finnish nationality.

In addition, the researcher has a chance to provide feedback on the statistics in the form of an unofficial evaluation.

Before 2008, the practice covered only racist crimes. Since then, the research has expanded to include hate crimes. It was also the first measure established for recording hate crimes.

The broadening of the research also saw the searches being refined to include keywords. This led to the identification of significantly more hate crime and racist crime cases.

The statistics have been quite stable over the last five years – between 800 and 1,000 cases of suspected hate crimes are identified annually.

Publicly available contact details

Researcher:

Jenita Rauta
Email: jenita.rauta@poliisi.fi

Senior researcher:

Jarmo Houtsonen
Email: jarmo.houtsonen@poliisi.fi