Number of hate crimes reported to the Police on the rise

The number of hate crimes reported to the Police increased by more than 50 per cent last year compared to the previous year. A total of 1,250 suspected hate crimes were recorded in 2015, when the number of suspected cases was 822 in 2014.

Similarly to previous years, most of the crimes reported in 2015 were racially motivated offences, and the most common type of offence was assault.

The current system of monitoring the number of suspected hate crimes was adopted at the Police University College in 2008. Hate crime statistics are compiled on the basis of nationwide data on crimes reported to the Police.

Non-racially motivated hate crimes also increasing

The number of suspected racially motivated offences increased by 313 compared to the previous year. The Police recorded 991 suspected racially motivated crimes in 2015. The figure was 678 in 2014 and 710 in 2013.

The number of suspected hate crimes relating to religion or beliefs also increased. The Police recorded 133 suspected hate crimes relating to religion or beliefs in 2015, which was 96 per cent more than during the previous year. Just over half of the cases related to Islam.

The number of suspected hate crimes relating to sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression increased by 14 compared to the previous year. Suspected hate crimes relating to disability numbered 65 in 2015 and 29 in 2014.

Unusual year in terms of hate crime

The number of suspected hate crimes reported to the Police was considerably higher last year than in previous years. According to Researcher Tero Tihveräinen , who compiled the report, the figures cannot be explained purely by the sudden influx of asylum seekers and the debate around the phenomenon.

“The number of suspected cases of non-racially motivated hate crime has also increased since the previous year. It is possible that awareness of hate crime has increased due to public debate and that the threshold for reporting cases to the Police has lowered. No conclusions can be drawn on the reasons for the increase in numbers based on this report, however”, Tihveräinen says.

The Police University College defines hate crime as a “crime against a person, group, somebody’s property, institution, or a representative of these, motivated by prejudice or hostility towards the victim’s real or perceived ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, transgender identity or appearance, or disability”.

A crime is classified as a hate crime even if the perpetrator simply assumes that the victim belongs to one of the aforementioned groups. The actual background of the victim is therefore irrelevant.

The Criminal Code of Finland does not contain a definition for hate crime or racially motivated crime. Hate as a motive is nevertheless grounds for imposing a more severe punishment. The definition adopted by courts for imposing more severe punishments for hate crimes is somewhat less restrictive but also more ambiguous than the definition used in the hate crime report.

The full 2015 annual report on hate crime is available online at polamk.fi/julkaisut (in Finnish with an abstract in English). More information about the hate crime project is also available on the website .