Crime prevention on the local level - strengthening the partnership approach

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to see here in Helsinki such a large group of state and municipal authorities and representatives from various NGO´s working with the issues of free movement, migration and possible problems related to these phenomena.

In parallel with other European countries, in Finland we can see the new phases of global movements of populations with increasing number of immigrants and visitors from all around the world.

Finland is considered one of the safest countries in Europe. Crime risks in Finland are among the lowest in Europe. This applies to crimes against individuals, such as robberies or burglaries, and to corruption or terrorism aimed at society in general. Finnish security has been achieved with a reasonably low level of repression. The number of police officers in relation to the population is the lowest in Europe. Relative to population, our number of police officers is not even half of that in the other EU countries on average. The number of inmates in Finnish prisons is almost half of that in the EU countries typically.

We can also be happy about the fact that in the 2000s changes in crime figures have been relatively small. The decreasing trend in theft has continued, while the number of recorded assaults has unfortunately steadily increased. For example, youth crime has been falling for some time. According to surveys among schoolchildren, minor crimes involving property, such as petty shoplifting and damage to property, have fallen by about one-third within a decade. Children's participation in violence related offences has been fairly stable. However, due to increasing use of computers and mobile phones, new types of offences and victimisation have emerged. These include internet harassment and threats by e-mail or sms-messages and illegal downloading and sharing of files.

In spite of good general situation, Finland does have its own traditional crime problem, namely the high violence rate, much of it fuelled by alcohol. Especially in homicides, Finland differs from the Western European countries: in Finland the homicide rate is about 2.5 times higher. A commonplace homicide in Finland is violence among a binge drinking party in which both the person carrying out the deed and the victim as well as any other people present are heavily drunk.

Multiculturalism in Finland

Free movement of persons is a fundamental right of EU citizenship, allowing citizens to travel, live and work freely throughout the EU. What has become true for capital, goods and services has to be a reality for people too. The larger than ever Schengen-area is a historic achievement: it abolishes internal border controls and ensures that the EU is not divided between "old" and "new". This is one step further towards deeper and wider European integration. However, today EU governments face the pressing question of how to deal with rising numbers of immigrants, both immigrants with a legalised status and immigrants without papers in an area without internal frontiers. The demographic and economic needs of rich countries and weak state structures in some developing countries build up a mismatch that is sometimes difficult to cope with.

Due to development within the EU and other trends of increased global mobility also Finland is rapidly becoming more multicultural. Immigrants and ethnic minorities have larger presence in the major cities. In the Helsinki region they account for more than 8% of the population. However, due to effective housing policy, there are not many neighbourhoods with a high density of immigrants, although increased multiculturalism can be seen in everyday life, for instance in schools. There are some schools in Helsinki where almost half of the pupils come from immigrant backgrounds. In many other European countries the ascent of multiculturalism has been gradual, but Finland is seeing an accelerated version of the trend. It is probable that in future immigrants´ cultural and religious backgrounds, their reasons for migration, their periods of stay and their educational and occupational backgrounds will be more varied than before.
This increased multiculturalism implies many new opportunities for Finland. It is up to society as a whole - the political system, the authorities, the business sector and citizens - how well we will be able to benefit from the positive factors and prevent the rise of factors that jeopardise security. Ethnic minorities are extensively at risk of social exclusion. They complete education less frequently than the majority of the population and have less success in finding employment. Social exclusion is also often motivated by racist treatment and becoming a victim of racist crime. The same factors often contribute to perpetration of crime. The number of immigrants´ crime sentences correlate positively with their unemployment rate and low income.

In 2007, about 22,200 immigrants who had residence in Finland were suspected of some offence. This was 3.3 % out of all persons suspected of offences known to the police in Finland. In comparison, immigrants having residence in Finland make up 2.5 % of the whole population. In addition, about 17 400 tourists and other visitors not having residence in Finland were suspected of offences. Totally, about 39,500 foreigners (5.8 % of all suspects) were suspected of crimes in 2007. Forcible rapes and robberies are offences where foreign suspects are most clearly over-represented. The share of prisoners with immigrant background in Finnish prisons has been rapidly increasing in last 15 years, from about 1 % to 9 % of the average daily prison population. Foreigner participation in the growing narcotics markets is a central factor in this development.

Studies of immigrants as crime victims indicate that they commonly suffer from many varieties of discrimination, including attacks of racist violence. Persons from Somalia were particularly often exposed to such events. Also persons with an Arabic or Turkish background had experienced discrimination and racist violence more frequently than other immigrant groups.

In Finland there have been modest problems with Roma people from former Eastern-European countries arriving in Finland to earn money by begging. Racism against Roma people is still extremely ever-present throughout most, if not all, of the world. Roma are denied access to basic human rights such as healthcare and education in many countries. In some countries they have no insurance, no health number. Authorities don't even have no idea how many Roma are resident in their countries as national census don't include them. It is no wonder Roma people seek to earn living from other countries. The challenge here is how to find successful solutions that help prevention of social exclusion of immigrants and promote cultural understanding. Begging is to a large extent a social problem, not a crime, and it should also be dealt that way. Roma problem echoes to all EU-countries and common solutions should be found within the EU-structure.

Good relations between population groups promote security. The attitudes of Finns towards ethnic minorities have slowly become more positive. Despite this, ethnic minorities are still viewed with mixed emotions. Underlying the negative attitudes are insufficient knowledge about ethnic minorities, their cultures and their religions. Can "good" migrants really be separated from "bad" ones? Official statistics construct a darker view of multiculturalism in Finland than attitude studies seem to show. The number of cases of discrimination filed with the Ombudsman for Minorities is on the rise every year, as is the number of suspected racist crimes reported to the police. The trend is distressing although the raise can partly be explained by the increased number of immigrants and the improved readiness of victims to report to the authorities. In fact, studies of the dark figure of crime indicate that discrimination or other illegal treatment experienced by immigrants still often remain unreported. The signs of economic deprivation can even worsen the confrontation. The challenge is to prevent crime, to develop monitoring and also to lower the threshold for reporting crimes.

An increasing number of socially excluded people may, in the worst case, lead to a toughening of attitudes towards ethnic minorities and even to emergence of isolated sub-cultures, both among the majority population and among ethnic minorities. So far, apparently no such sub-cultures have emerged in Finland. However, developments abroad have shown that social exclusion and deprivation of ethnic minorities may lead to problems that escalate to the society as a whole. Increased tensions between ethnic minority groups are also a factor to consider in future.

Integration and empowerment requires positive attitudes at workplaces and in communities. Integration measures should serve to teach people arriving in host country about the society and improve their chances of finding a place in society and working life. It is important for the support of integration and for the enjoyment of fundamental rights that members of ethnic minorities have equal access to government services as majority population has. However, insufficient knowledge of culture-specific phenomena is still all too common in many areas.

 

Crime prevention on the local level: enhancing partnerships

Rapid increase in free movement of populations and urbanisation globally bring huge challenges to be faced. The importance of providing a sense of security among people in public spaces cannot be underestimated. Failing to have a sense of security in one's everyday environment can have various negative consequences.

There always exists a risk that fears and insecurity add public pressures to respond to crime with repressive measures. As opposed to criminal justice approaches, crime prevention addresses the underlying causes of crime and as such promotes long-term and sustainable solutions to threats posed by crime. Studies suggest that crime prevention programmes are economically viable and can achieve significant return on the investment in terms of savings in justice, welfare and health care costs, as well as in terms of the protection of social and human capital. Prevention encompasses a wide range of approaches including social development, community integration, urban renewal, and integration.

Crime is a complex issue which has many contributing factors that cross the lines of traditional government department responsibilities. Today we know that effective measures for decreasing crime and improving safety tend to be local. It is possible to tailor measures that have been proven successful to the local problems and to the factors that affect these problems. Successful strategies of crime prevention rely on a broad co-operation between all actors - public and private, collective and individual. Partnerships can bring together different points of view, knowledge, skills and experience to generate new approaches to crime prevention. The key is to overcome a misplaced dependency upon the institutions of the criminal justice system and instead to encourage a sense of responsibility which extends into a much wider economy of crime control and welfare.

The specific context for partnership differs between countries. Police, justice, school, health care and juvenile and social authorities rank among the most important services and occupational groups in local crime prevention. Projects on crime prevention should be designed following the results of local safety audits and should be monitored and evaluated systematically. Good practises should be identified and widely promoted.

Effective crime prevention requires strong leadership from national and local governments. Planning should be based on good analysis of problems and causes. Strategies must be comprehensive including the whole range of services and institutions affecting people's daily lives.

In Finland since implementing the first National Crime Prevention programme in 1999, emphasis in crime prevention has been at the local level. The first Internal Security Programme from year 2004 set the guidelines for improving local security planning. Following that, in 2008 the Government decided on a second extensive Internal Security Programme with a target of no less than making Finland the safest country in Europe. The programme also set quantitative targets to reduce crime. The Internal Security Programme was prepared through broad-based cooperation coordinated by the Ministry of Interior, involving nearly 200 experts from 12 ministries, 22 government offices and agencies and 23 NGOs, and a number of research institutions. Priority is given to reducing violence and the number of accidents, preventing the harmful effects of alcohol and addressing security issues relating to ethnic minorities. The programme runs until 2015.

In Finnish towns and cities security planning is managed by municipal leaders together with the top of the regional police and rescue officers. Representatives of NGOs and the business sector also participate. The work begins with an analysis of the local security situation, which is open for feedback for local citizens and businesses. Partners bring a range of perspectives that increase understanding of the specific problem and allow crime prevention measures to be shaped to local circumstances. Then, a municipal level security plan is drawn up indicating objectives for improving safety, the practical measures to be taken and the parties responsible for those measures. The security plan is debated by the municipal council, which also should monitor its implementation regularly. The plan is implemented by joint working groups and hopefully also monitored and reported on in the local media. The security plan is revised in each electoral period, with the newly elected council reviewing, revising and approving the plan at the beginning of its term of office. According to the Internal Security programme all municipalities should have a municipal or sub-regional security plan in place by the end of 2009.

Preventing racism is one of the key factors in decreasing both immigrants involvement in crime and crime directed towards immigrants, including attacks of racist violence. The municipal level security planning plays an important role in enhancing racism prevention. Several municipal services, such as day care of children and schools, have great possibilities in strengthening positive attitudes towards immigrant populations. Prevention of racism should be included in all of the municipal security plans drawn up in future. Furthermore, ethnic minorities should have a strong representation in local safety planning.

NGOs have an important role in strengthening internal security locally, regionally and nationally. Their active contribution to planning, implementation and evaluation will be even more important in the future when resources get scarce due to economic downshift. NGOs have the crucial task of motivating active civic participation in strengthening the security of citizens themselves and their immediate community. It is particularly important to draw on the good experiences and practices of NGOs in the preparation of local security plans. The challenge is to get representatives from immigrant organisations to take actively part in local safety planning.

It takes skill and attention to ensure partnerships stay focused and relevant, adapt to external change and deliver the intended benefits. Partnerships are not static. After being established they need to be sustained and strengthened or, if they've served their purpose, disbanded. However, it would be rare for a strategic partnership to be disbanded as crime tends to be ongoing, though it may change in nature over time.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Effective crime prevention requires governments to uphold the human rights of citizens, and to work against the exclusion of vulnerable groups including the urban poor, women and minorities, and children and young people. The present signs of recession seem to strengthen the suspicious attitudes towards immigrants. The task is to reverse this trend. Indeed, narrow and exclusive national list extremism should be condemned.

I wish good luck to your work during this seminar and I'm convinced that you will have interesting lectures, active group work and personal contacts, that will help you to carry out the important work in your home countries.