NBI: Police can prevent attack on school, but there is no punishment for planning

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Police complain that they are fairly powerless in dealing with people planning violent attacks against schools, as planning crimes are not crimes in themselves under existing legislation.
      This means that anyone can draw up lists of people to be killed, and prepare for various types of attacks with no risk of legal consequences as long as no actual violent action has taken place.
      Police feel that the fact that making preparations for a crime against people’s lives and health is not illegal is a real problem.
     
The topic came up when police said that they had recently prevented a serious attack on a school from taking place. The planner had not made any threats, but police got wind of the plot anyway. No further details were given out.
      “Police can prevent a crime, but the person involved does not face criminal sanctions”, says Tero Haapala of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
      “Unfortunately... if the police get information, they must try to prevent the crime using their own means.”
      A person can be arrested for a short time to prevent a crime from taking place, but there are no other consequences for the person involved. Forcing a person into treatment is not necessarily easy, because planners of violent acts are not necessarily mental patients.
      “It is possible to react to a threat, but if someone is found to have a specific plan or to have made preparations without making threats, then it is problematic.”
      Matti Tolvanen, Professor of Criminal and Procedural Law, is familiar with the problem faced by police.
     
“It might sound strange that it is punishable to make a serious-sounding threat of something for which there are scant possibilities for implementation. If someone makes very far-reaching preparations, without expressing the desire in the form of a threat, it is possible to get off without any punishment”, Tolvanen observes.
      In certain cases a situation might even arise, in which property has greater legal value than life.
      “If someone wants to burn down a church, for instance, and collects fuel or explosives for the purpose, the act is punishable. One might ask if the preparation of a murder should also be punishable.”
      Tolvanen feels that there is a gap of sorts in legislation.
      “It is quite a big problem, what to do to these types, for whom the criteria for involuntary treatment are not met, but who are nevertheless dangerous.”
     
At what point will a possible school attacker have committed a more serious crime?
      “If a person leaves home with a backpack containing explosives, it is not yet a crime. Perhaps the crime happens at the earliest when the person arrives in the schoolyard, and at the latest when the person goes inside, even before getting the chance to take out a weapon”, Tolvanen says.
      According to Tolvanen, the starting point of the existing law is that nobody can be punished for nurturing a thought. In his view, it would be justified from a legal policy point of view to make preparation of a crime punishable.
      “Legislation should contain an idea that a very concrete plan, combined with a real possibility to carry it out, would constitute punishable preparation.
     
Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) says that she has discussed the matter with National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero and Prosecutor General Matti Kuusimäki.
      The views expressed by police are not especially new: the drawbacks of current legislation have come out in Turku District court, where a trial is underway in which the defendants are on trial for attempting to rob an armoured vehicle. Arguments revolve around the question of whether or not the act was a criminal attempt, or mere planning.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  NBI believes it has prevented impending school attack through Net monitoring (4.11.2008)

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