Police equally stumped by panhandlers
New guidelines being sought from the Ministry of the Interior
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By Kimmo Oksanen
The Finnish police do not intervene to move beggars on, unless their seeking for alms takes on a disturbing or aggressive tone. This is the message from Chief Insp. Pekka Höök, who heads the field unit of the Helsinki Police Department’s Central Precinct.
"In the summer we had more feedback from members of the public about them, but now that fall has come on, we get fewer calls”, Höök says.
The panhandlers were expected to leave as soon as autumn came and the nights got colder. They nevertheless seem to have stayed put. For instance on Saturday there were several beggars to be seen in the centre of the capital.
Aside from those primarily East European EU citizens who have concentrated solely on begging for alms, there have been people from the same original neck of the woods out “selling flowers” or “hawking gold ornaments”.
Their behaviour is viewed with some concern, and many are believed to be engaged in criminal activities.
Flowers have been foisted on people pretty much by main force and ostensibly for free, and at the same time the mark has been hustled for money, even to the point of having it taken off them bodily in some cases.
Junk and kitsch items have been peddled - or at least the attempt has been made - as gold, not just in Helsinki, but around the country.
"There are all sorts of doubts and suspicions you can have. In the summer we also did some investigations into the social side of things, but there were no obvious demonstrations of abuses”, continues Höök, talking about matters in Helsinki.
In the summer people were interested and alarmed (see attached article from August), among other things by the fact that a good many of the beggars seemed to have young children with them every day. This seems to be still going on, with the social services authorities largely powerless to intervene.
The police are currently re-examining and modifying their guidelines on begging in the streets.
Back-up has been sought from the Ministry of the Interior, says Inspector Jussi Huhtela from the Helsinki Police Department.
“Basically there are two alternatives. Begging might be seen as transgressing against the Public Order Act of 2003, or then again it might go down as a mild money collection offence. We’re looking into it.”
"If the begging has caused an actual nuisance, fines have been imposed. If the mark is given very little room to refuse to contribute, then it can be considered as an offence under the Money Collection Act of 2006.”
The Moldovan family, whom we saw begging in Helsinki, vehemently denied that they had anything to do with anything of a criminal nature.
Their panhandling is forced on them by circumstance, they say. “We are not criminals. We just want to work, not to steal from people”, the family’s grandmother Verginia Moldovan daclared firmly on Saturday.
According to them, their home in Romania simply does not provide a means to make ends meet, and so they have to come to Finland to find some kind of livelihood.
But when the grandmother kisses one’s hand and mutters "God bless", and when her daughter Mariana bursts into tears as she recounts how the child Angelica was catching cold at night outside, the question is raised - wouldn’t this plea for help be better addressed to a state or local official and not to members of the public?
“Probably, yes, but they come from countries where the public’s trust in civil authority of any kind is weak at best”, says Pekka Höök.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.10.2007
More on this subject:
 Beggars on their knees cause consternation on Helsinki streets
Social Services Department to take action on children accompanying Helsinki beggars
KIMMO OKSANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kimmo.oksanen@hs.fi
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