Finland | HCRW

Finland regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Finland has conducted victimization surveys to measure unreported hate crimes. 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 crimes 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.

SELECT YEAR

Download the 2019 hate crime report for Finland

OFFICIAL DATA REPORTED BY STATES

Year	Hate crimes recorded by police	Prosecuted	Sentenced
2023	1,361	49	48
2022	1,094	121	27
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 2019 Data

The police also recorded 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. Prosecution and sentencing numbers only represent cases flagged by the police as hate crimes.

Hate crime recorded by police

A total of 1,237 hate crimes were originally reported to ODIHR. The number of individual crime reports was 899, as one crime report can include several hate crimes. This number included cases of ethnic agitation, defamation and discrimination, which were removed and are not presented here. With the consent of the Roma community, hate crime against Roma people has been included as a category separate from Racism and Xenophobia.

By bias motivation
By type of crime

Download official data

National developments

November 2019 marked the end of a two-year project "Against Hate", funded by European Commission Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme and co-ordinated by the Ministry of Justice. Project activities were focused on developing hate crime reporting and strengthening the capacities of police, prosecutors and judges to handle cases of hate crime and hate speech, as well as on improving support for hate crime victims. The project included training activities, including five regional training events for police officers, prosecutors and judges in May 2019. A hate crime manual for prosecutors and judges was developed, and a shadow report on reported hate crime cases was published in March 2019. In November 2019, the project released three episodes of a podcast dealing with hate crime. The project also saw the publication in March 2019 of a shadow report on victims' experiences of hate crimes, aimed at including their perspectives in discussions on the issue (https://www.riku.fi/binary/file/-/id/79/fid/2142). Unlike the report on hate crimes by the Police University College, this report drew on qualitative rather than statistical data, and focused on the experiences and needs of victims. This type of data gathering will continue in the "Facts against Hate", launched in December 2019 and co-ordinated by Ministry of Justice.

KEY OBSERVATION

ODIHR observes that Finland has met most OSCE commitments on hate crime data collection and reporting.

Kantor Center reported only statistical data. This explains the discrepancy between the graphic above and the incidents included below.

Anti-Muslim hate crime

Date	Type of incident	Source	Description
2019-05	Attacks against property	SETA	Show info
2019-03	Attacks against property	SETA	Show info

Anti-Christian hate crime

Date	Type of incident	Source	Description
2019-07	Attacks against property	OIDAC	Show info

INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

Racist and xenophobic hate crime

The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers published relevant recommendations in its "Resolution on the Implementation of the Framework Convention for the protection of National Minorities by Finland."