Hate crime reporting rises by 8% in 2017

The number of hate crimes reported to the police in 2017 was eight per cent more than that in 2016.

A Police University College study found a total of 1,165 reports were recorded by the police as suspected hate crimes last year, the college said in a press release.

Despite the annual rise in the number of reported hate crimes in 2017, it was still less than the level prevailing before 2016.

The number of principal offences was 99 less than that in 2016. Principal offence refers to the most serious types of crime to which the injured party in each crime report was subjected to.

All in all, the number of hate crimes can be said to have stabilised, but after the 2015 wave of migration, it still remains above the long-term average.

As in the previous years, the majority of the hate crime reports in 2017 included features related to ethnic or national background, and assault was the most common type of crime.

Hate crimes reported to the police have been monitored for 20 years in Finland. They are recorded on the basis of national police report data. Hate crimes usually increase based on religion, belief or conviction.

Last year, the police recorded 813 suspected hate crimes based on ethnic or national background, 18 less than that in 2016. The monitoring of hate crimes was developed by adding a sub-category to the specification, to facilitate monitoring of hate crimes targeting the Roma.

Last year, 10 per cent of all crime reports were based on ethnic or national background while 9.7 per cent of principal offences targeted people having Roma background. Discrimination was the most common crime committed in these 81 reported cases.

In 2017, the number of suspected hate crimes based on religion or religious conviction increased the most ­– 58 per cent from the figure of such recorded crimes in 2016. The police recorded a total of 235 such hate crimes, in 63 per cent of which the offences were targeted against Islam.

In recent years, the police have stepped up their operations of recognising and preventing hate crimes. According to the National Police Board guidelines, if a case is suspected to have any feature linked to any hate crime, the police should always classify it as a hate crime when recording crime reports. In 2017, police used this classification in 39 per cent of all hate crimes reported to them, while in 2016 the corresponding percentage was 23. One of the key reasons for the higher figure is the development of special police training related to hate crimes.