Prevention and investigation of multiple killings could be shifted to Security Police

School killings become focus of attention at security and defence fair

print this

The school massacre in Kauhajoki last week and in Jokela last year are seen as a new type of crime in Finland, whose prevention and investigation requires systematic police work.
     At a seminar on Finnish readiness for crises and safety of society held in Lahti on Friday, Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund (Nat. Coalition Party), National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero and Security Police (SUPO) chief Ilkka Salmi told Helsingin Sanomat that preventing and responding to this new kind of criminality could be made a task of SUPO.
     At the Security and Defence Fair held in Lahti, concern about everyday security in society was a major worry, alongside scenarios of traditional military threats. The school killings in Jokela and Kauhajoki are no longer seen as isolated events, but rather as serious indications that of social marginalisation, and of anger brewing beneath the surface.
     
According to Holmlund, social exclusion and phenomena related to it are the key threat to security. However, Holmlund’s list of measures taken after the Jokela school killings proved to be a short one: the police have been trained to be more vigilant in granting firearms permits, and schools have been urged to update their security plans.
     According to the Minister of the Interior, shifting the investigation into this new type of crime to SUPO “should be considered seriously”.
     
A common feature of the school killings and a number of other recent acts of violence is that the perpetrators have been young men. In Kerava, an 18-year-old man who killed a 15-year-old girl this autumn said in his confession that he had long suffered from a feeling anguish.
     “We have people who have been marginalised for the second generation. Already in day care it is possible to recognise children who could potentially be pushed aside”, Holmlund said.
     Ilkka Salmi of SUPO said that if the will is there to direct more resources at fighting crime, that is what will happen.
     SUPO has long monitored extremist movements; radical animal welfare activists have long been under the scrutiny of SUPO. “It is clear that in light of these cases, we can expand these activities”, Salmi says.
     “In Jokela and in the case of Kauhajoki, we can see similar characteristics, and we need to pay heed.”
     
Salmi reiterated his view that the school killings do not constitute terrorism in the traditional sense. He points out that the purpose of the action was not to destabilise the basic structures of the state.
     Secretary of State Risto Volanen (Centre) defined terrorism slightly differently, and said that acts such as the school killings are specifically aimed at terrorising people.
     At the seminar held during the fair, Volanen reiterated the view expressed by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) that the school killings can no longer be seen as isolated incidents. but rather as a new security threat, which targets both humanity as a whole and other individuals.
     “There is admiration of the culture of violence in the background.”
     “Is it a case of organised crime, if people sharing a way of thinking involving misanthropy, and hate for humanity interact on the Internet? That is where the group has formed. this must be clearly understood as a crime. It is fascist communication that takes place over the Internet”, Volanen says.

More on this subject:
 No indication that police action prompted Saari to move up Kauhajoki attack

Previously in HS International Edition:
  NBI struggles to monitor Internet for potentially dangerous content (26.9.2008)
  Police actions to be examined in detail (24.9.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat