Sexual offenses Rape is most often left unresolved in the largest cities in Vantaa, Joensuu and Turku – see the situation in your hometown

Rape offenses Based on the HS report, there are significant differences in clearing percentages across Finland. By far the lowest clearing percentages are from police stations in Eastern Uusimaa and from large cities in Vantaa, which is part of the Eastern Uusimaa plant area.

The highest clearing percentages are found in the police departments of Northern Finland.

Regional differences in clearing rates raise the question of whether the probability of a rape being investigated may vary depending on the police district in which the crime occurs.

Police has classified 39 per cent of rape offenses in Vantaa in 2017–2021 and 46 per cent in the entire East Uusimaa plant area.

The difference with other big cities and police stations is clear.

In the area of ​​all other major cities and police departments, clearing rates exceed 50. The nationwide clearing rate is 66 percent.

The settlement percentage in Vantaa is more than 45 percentage points lower than in Oulu. Its clearing rate is the best of the 15 largest cities. There are also differences of tens of percentage points between other cities.

By clarifying a criminal suspicion, the police refer to cases that it submits for prosecution. These are therefore not cases leading to a judgment.

Why Vantaa has a lower liquidation rate than other large cities?

Crime Commission of the Eastern Uusimaa Police Department Heidi Niemen According to

However, he says that the workload of forensic investigators is high in Eastern Uusimaa and there is a lot of stuff to investigate.

“The Eastern Uusimaa Police Department ranks at the top of the kingdom in terms of how many criminal offenses are investigated by one police officer towards. The police department has done a lot to improve its investigation processes, and rape detection rates have risen in the last couple of years. The situation is getting better, ”he says.

Niemi points out that the police sometimes conduct a lot of investigations in cases that do not lead to a prosecution and thus do not appear to be a better percentage of clearance in the statistics.

This may be the case, for example, where the identity of the suspect remains a mystery or where a preliminary investigation reveals that there is no reason to suspect that a crime has taken place.

What about why does Oulu have a higher liquidation rate than other large cities?

Commissioner for Criminal Investigation of the Oulu Police Janne Koskela believes that the high percentage of rape offenses is the result of the police department’s conscious efforts to investigate in recent years.

According to Koskela, Oulu’s clearance rate has improved at the same time as the department has focused its human resources on investigating crimes against life and health and has actively cooperated with other actors.

“The clearing percentage is one indication that the basic work has been done quite well,” says Koskela.

Mere the clearance rate does not tell us directly about the quality of the police investigation of suspected crimes.

Suspicions of rape are investigated well and professionally by the police, but there are also shortcomings in the level and efficiency of criminal investigations. In some cases, police have provided the prosecutor with poorly investigated criminal suspicions.

They do not necessarily lead to a fair outcome in a prosecution or court, says a specialist investigator in the Equality Ombudsman’s office Heini Kainulainen.

Kainulainen has worked as a researcher at the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy and as a professor of criminal law at the University of Turku. She has been researching violence against women for more than two decades.

According to him, it is not possible to directly deduce from the clearing percentages in which areas the rape allegations are well investigated and where they may not.

“I believe that good and bad quality investigations take place at both extremes,” says Kainulainen.

According to Kainulainen, the inability of criminal proceedings to bring criminal suspicions investigated by the police to court is a major problem. About 20 percent of police-reported suspicions of rape have been prosecuted and about 15 percent convicted in recent years.

Clearing percentages In addition to the quality of the investigation and the resources of the police, it may affect, among other things, the suspicions of rape that come to the investigation.

It is easier for the police to investigate cases where the victim already knows the identity of the suspect in the crime.

“It also affects the attitude and professionalism with which the case is investigated by the police. It is paramount that the police know how to be sensitive to the victim. There are differences in it, ”says Kainulainen.

HS said January 16 on the problems of qualifications in sexual offenses and intimate partner violence. The article presented cases where the police have, among other things, ignored the evidence and failed to hear witnesses. Some pre-examinations have also been very long for no valid reason.

Read more: Mira was raped and a DNA sample showed the perpetrator, but it took a year for the police to catch the man – Five women tell HS how hard it is to get justice

The police should therefore strike a balance between not prosecuting criminal suspicions by drowning, but also leaving pre-trial detention unfinished for long periods of time.

“Sexual crime investigation has evolved and the police have invested in it, and the methods of criminal investigation have also evolved. However, the quality of the investigation remains uneven. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, ”says Kainulainen.

Not everyone agrees with the evolution of the level of investigation.

Experienced criminal attorney Maija Häyrinen said Thursday In an interview with HS problems identified in the investigation. In his view, the level of pre-trial investigation into sexual and intimate partner violence has deteriorated in recent years, as evidenced by both police attitudes and expertise.

Read more: An experienced criminal lawyer decided to put his gloves on a pound after frustrated by the problems of a criminal investigation: “People don’t understand how weathered this system is”