More racist crimes reported to police

Somalis and Turks most frequent victims of racial attacks

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Police in Finland are investigating more crimes involving an element of racism.
      Reports of racially-motivated hate crimes have increased steadily in recent years. In 2006, 748 such crimes were recorded.
     
One explanation for the finding by researcher Tanja Noponen of the Police College of Finland, is that victims are more willing to inform police about the crimes than before. However, a large proportion of the crimes still go unreported.
      Nearly half of the cases are assaults of various types. The most common location is a restaurant or its vicinity. The crimes typically occur at night.
      Slightly more than half of the cases involved victims who were Finnish citizens. Most of the victims were born outside of Finland.
     
Those with a Somali background were most typically the victims of racist violence. Other groups included Russians Iraqis, Iranians, and Turks. When viewed in proportion to their share of the population, Turks suffered from racist attacks slightly more frequently than Somalis.
     
Finnish citizens were the overwhelming majority among suspected perpetrators. However, Somali, Turkish, and Iraqi citizens were also included among the suspected attackers.
      most of the suspects were men aged 15 to 24. One out of four of the cases took place in Helsinki, and about half occurred in the Province of South Finland, where most of the country's foreign-born population live.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Racist crime rarely leads to conviction in Finland (26.4.2007)
  Immigrants get fines following Kajaani pizzeria brawl last year (22.11.2006)
  Assault is the most common racist crime (30.8.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat