Number of rapes increases by 6%

A total of 854,400 offences were recorded by the police, customs and border guard during 2017, which is 31,300 cases or 3.8 per cent more than in 2016, according to Statistics Finland.

Growth was mainly recorded for traffic infractions. The recorded number of crimes against life and health was 35,700, which is 0.7 per cent lower than in January to December 2016.

Six per cent more rapes were reported and there were 22.6 per cent fewer cases of sexual harassment than in the year before.

A majority of the reported offences are recorded by the police. During January to December 2017, a total of 839,400 offences were recorded by the police, which is 3.9 per cent more than in 2016.

In 2017, a total of 9,300 offences were recorded by the customs and 5,700 offences by the border guard. Compared with 2016, the offences recorded by the customs decreased by 1.9 per cent and those recorded by the border guard declined by five per cent.

The reform of fine legislation on 1 December 2016 affects the updating of statistics on criminal offences especially in terms of traffic offences. Fines from automatic traffic control are updated into the police PATJA system with a delay of around 60 days. For this reason, the publication time of the statistics has been moved by a few months in 2018.