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Finland Incidence of Crime
According to official Finnish data for 1986, the
largest
group of crimes covered by the Criminal Code was crimes
against
property (75 percent of the total); theft alone accounted
for 42
percent, and embezzlement and fraud for 15 percent.
Drunken
driving constituted 9 percent of all Criminal Code
violations,
and crimes against personal safety, mostly assaults,
accounted
for 7 percent.
During the 1970s, the crime rate showed a rising trend
corresponding to the growing affluence of the country and
to the
shift in population from the rural north to the urban
south.
After the mid-1970s, however, the rate for many crime
categories
leveled off; in some cases it even fell. Robberies
decreased
during the 1980s, and bank robberies were infrequent, only
sixteen cases being recorded in 1986. Assaults increased
somewhat
during the same period, roughly parallel to the increase
in
alcohol consumption. Embezzlements and fraud increased
noticeably, in part as a consequence of the mass
introduction of
credit cards in the 1980s. Drunken driving offenses
slackened off
relative to the number of automobiles, from a rate of 161
per
100,000 cars in 1977 to 122 per 100,000 cars in 1985. This
was
due both to stricter controls and to an absolute decrease
in the
number of drunken drivers.
In 1986 the number of murder and manslaughter cases
investigated by the police amounted to 143. The homicide
rate of
3 per 100,000 of population was considered to be high by
European
standards. Finland's rate of assault was more than three
times
the rate of Denmark and Norway, but similar to that of
Sweden.
Finland, however, experienced the lowest theft rate of all
the
Scandinavian countries; this appeared to be explained by
differentials in the level of prosperity, urbanization,
and
population density among the nations. Finland was also
lowest in
narcotic offenses
(see Drug Enforcement
, this ch.).
Data as of December 1988
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