1  Introduction

Since 1975, the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, University of Helsinki (KRIMO) has published an annual overview of crime trends in Finland. The report is published in Finnish (Kolttola 2024b). To make the basic findings available for wider audiences, this short report summarises key findings in English.

A characteristic feature of KRIMO’s crime monitoring activities has been the parallel use of (a) administrative statistics of recorded crimes and (b) survey-based indicators of crime. Survey-based crime measurement started in the early 1960s and has continued, often in international survey contexts (J. Kivivuori 2011a). The purpose of the surveys was originally to “correct” presumed biases in official crime statistics. However, it is increasingly recognised that administrative statistics and surveys are mutually supplementary measures that capture different ends of the crime continuum. As is reported in this summary, there are also indications that after a major period of rise during the late 20th century, the propensity of people to report offences to the police has stabilised. This would increase the trend validity of official crime statistics.

Following the longstanding principle of combined use of official records and population surveys, this report focuses on homicide and on crime types whose trends can be cross-validated by both data sources. The final part (section 7) of the report provides an overview of crime prevention methods applied in Finland. This part of the report draws on the crime prevention research database FINPREV and on a recent systematic review of Nordic studies relevant for social policy-based prevention (Beuker, Kivivuori, and Raeste 2024b) and (Beuker, Kivivuori, and Raeste 2024c) (Karoliina Suonpää et al. 2023b) . The focus is on methods whose preventive effect has research-based support[1].

[1] Research summarised in this report has received funding from the Strategic Research Council established within the Research Council of Finland, grant numbers 352600 and 352601.

1.1 Finland

Situated in northern Europe, Finland has a population of 5.6 million (2024). In terms of socio-political institutions, Finland belongs to a group of Nordic welfare states with Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. It has a compulsory and free-of-charge school system, connecting all youths to educational institutions up to the age of 18. In the UN Human Development Index, Finland ranks 11th among 193 ranked nations, belonging to the category of “very high human development” (UNDP 2024a).

With regard to its criminal justice system, Finland represents a culture of penal moderation, with policy emphasis on prevention and rehabilitation. The Finnish prisoner rate of 52 per 100 000 population rate is one of the lowest in Europe and the world. Over the last decade, the Finnish prisoner rate has decreased. In the European comparison, Finland belongs to the cluster of countries with a “very low” prisoner rate, defined by having a 25 % lower rate than the European median value (Aebi and Cocco 2024a).

1.2 Crime Indicators

In this report, we have drawn on administrative crime statistics and KRIMO crime surveys to describe trends in selected crimes in Finland. The use of administrative statistics and survey data in tandem is mutually complementary. Administrative statistics do not include crimes that have not been not reported to the authorities. The propensity of people to report offences to the police is a temporal and spatial variable. To tackle this challenge, criminology has developed the hidden crime survey (J. Kivivuori 2011b) . Unfortunately, such crime surveys typically fail to capture the most serious crimes and the most marginalised offender and victim groups. Furthermore, crime surveys typically produce national estimates, thus overlooking the geographical concentration of crime within local areas. Therefore, this summary report has focused primarily (but not exclusively) on homicide and on crime types for which survey information is available, in order to present a cross-validated overview of recent crime trends. Since the survey indicators do not allow for local trends, we consider Finland as a single observation area in this summary report.

Administrative statistics of recorded crimes. The primary source is the Statistics on Offences and Coercive Measures (SOCM), compiled and published by Statistics Finland. In this report, we primarily used figures on offences reported to the police. Figures based on suspects in cleared offences are also needed whenever socio-demographic breakdown is used. In both cases, counts are based on offences as observation units, meaning that a single person may have committed more than one offence per annum. The gross number of offences reported to the police may reflect crime incidence and/or reporting propensity. Except for homicide, attempts are included in the figures. Homicides are additionally examined by cause of death statistics, counting victims of lethal violence.

Crime surveys. Regarding crime surveys, we drew on KRIMO key monitoring systems, such as the Finnish Crime Victim Survey (FCVS, 1980/2012-) and the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study (FSRD, 1995-). The Finnish Crimes against Businesses Survey (FCBS), conducted in 2010 and 2018, has also been referenced. KRIMO has developed these survey systems by combining international models with methodological research under local conditions (Aaltonen et al. 2012; J. Kivivuori, Sirén, and Danielsson 2012; J. Kivivuori et al. 2014a; Kaakinen et al. 2022).

We have cited selected further research if it provides clarification of observed trends and pattern changes, to allow the interested reader to find more in-depth analyses of the descriptive trends.