Finland

Finland regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Finland has conducted victimization surveys to measure unreported hate crime. The Finnish police closely co-operates with the Finnish Human Rights League, the Finnish Red Cross and Finnish Victim Support, to develop a co-ordinated response to combat hate crimes. These organizations, along with the national police and other key authorities, form a network tasked by Finland's Ministry of Justice with monitoring hate crime in Finland and developing adequate measures to prevent such crimes. Finland implemented ODIHR's Training Against Hate Crimes for Law Enforcement (TAHCLE) programme in 2017 and went on to train over 1,000 police officers on hate crimes before integrating the programme's hate crime modules into pre- and in-service training for police.

Hate crime data collection in Finland
Support for hate crime victims in Finland

OFFICIAL DATA

Year Hate crimes recorded by police Prosecuted Sentenced
2021 1,390 44 30
2020 1177 48 42
2019 900 22 17
2018 880 55 21
2017 1497 63 37
2016 1311 N/A N/A
2015 1704 Not available Not available
2014 954 Not available Not available
2013 904 Not available Not available
2012 836 38 12
2011 1418 29 12
2010 1407 38 Not available
2009 1580 41 Not available

About 2015 Data

    The police also record criminal forms of intolerance other than hate crimes, such as defamation, other hate speech offences and criminal discrimination. These data are reported to ODIHR but are not included in the overall figure or in the breakdown below.

Hate crime recorded by police

National developments

In order to increase the reporting of racist crimes, various awareness raising campaigns have been conducted in the framework of the "2012-2015 Internal Security Programme." The programme also initiated surveys among people of immigrant origin in order to gain information about their sense of security in the country. Finland is also part of a European Union project that aims at developing an EU model of good practice to counter racial and religious hate crime and hate speech, and that addresses effective systems to report on hate crime through capacity building for law-enforcement and ethnic communities.

The newly published "National Action Plan for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and Extremism" made a connection between hate crime and extremism, and commits to develop better mechanisms to counter the problem.

Finland signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ODIHR to implement the Training against Hate Crime for Law Enforcement (TAHCLE) programme.

KEY OBSERVATION

ODIHR observes that Finland has not reported information on the numbers of prosecuted hate crime cases to ODIHR.

Incidents reported by civil society, international organizations and the Holy See

INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

No information is available.