The National Program has improved the cooperation in crime prevention between the authorities and other parts. Local safety planning is going on all over in Finland. The active role of the police has been essential, but even the authorities of the municipalities have realised the importance of preventing crime.

There are over 440 municipalities in Finland. By the end of 2002 the local crime prevention programmes cover over 300 municipalities (some of the plans are for several municipalities). It is estimated that the rest of the safety plans will be made by the end of this year. The planning process itself has helped to make local crime prevention networks and increase civic activism that is needed in order to maintain and promote safety in the local community.

The role of the authorities is still strong in the safety planning networks. The police, the youth work, the social work and the education work of the municipality are most often involved. The business community is not represented as much as it could be. The civic activity is sometimes represented in the planning group by local parishes, residents associations, youth organisations or parents. Some of the municipalities have hired a full-time or a part-time coordinator, in other places the work has being done as a part of the job of the local author.

There are lots of local crime prevention activities where non-governmental organisations and individuals are involved, specially concerning the youth (e.g. street patrolling by parents). Because this kind of activities already existed even before the national program (where it was specially underlined), it is difficult to estimate what the program has brought about.

There is a numerous local crime prevention projects going on, and even the national program has been promoting or setting them into action. The Ministry of Justice has supported local projects since 1998 within the framework of the allocation contained for this purpose in the State budget. There is 120 000 € to deliver every year (ca 85 000 € to local projects and 35.000 € to evaluations of projects). It is not much money but still, it is considered as a big help.

By now, altogether 60 projects have been supported with 380.000 €. Almost half of the projects focus on safety planning in municipalities. Twenty deal with youth and children (e.g. preventing shoplifting). Some aim for better safety in neighbourhood with the help of residential associations and activity of citizens. There is one big problem, though: only few crime prevention projects are properly evaluated. Three local evaluation projects have been supported by the Ministry of Justice (52.000 €).

Two years ago the National Council started to build a network of contact persons in local crime prevention. That is to improve the information exchange on a local level and between the municipalities and the National Council. By now there is a contact person in half of the municipalities.

There is a clear need for regional co-operation between several municipalities. Some municipalities have already that kind of co-operation, but more is needed. There are some regional police councils too, but with varying results. Special organs for regional coordination in crime-prevention seem to be needed.

According to the national program for crime prevention, crime and the costs resulting from crime are to be decreased by increasing the effectiveness of cooperation among authorities and by using existing resources more effectively. The implementation of the programme has shown that it is not as simple as that. The ministries have used quite big sums of money on the activities mentioned in the programme. If the financial or human resources have been too few, the work could not have been done in the expected way. On the local level, the municipalities have got extra expenses when making safety plans (e.g. salaries if hiring a coordinator).

The programme has started a process where people have become more aware of the importance of crime prevention, the expectations for safety have grown and the authorities are expected to do something. The need for know-how in crime prevention has grown bigger, and more research and evaluation resources are needed.

The follow-up report recommends that the implementation of the National Crime Prevention Program should be extended. By now, the cooperative networks and the local safety plans have been created in most parts of the country, but the program is still in an early stage. Yet, the decision of just going on is not enough. Several developing suggestions have been made in the report.

In the national program, particular attention was to be paid against offences that cause feelings of insecurity and that may occur in the every-day environment. In local safety plans the municipalities have paid a lot of attention to anti-social and disturbing behaviour of the youth. There are some crime areas that have not been taken into account enough, like domestic violence. Severe violence as a whole, also in the international contexts, could almost be called as a Finnish national crime problem. Together with growing alcohol consumption, there is a risk of more violence. In order to reduce violence, we should need a special program covering the essential areas of violence (e.g. youth violence, violence against women). The drafting work of the program would belong to the National Council of Crime Prevention. – The Police already pay a special attention in their work to prevention of domestic violence.

More guidance and support by state is needed on the local level, e.g. to consolidate the networks, to coordinate the work, to create the regional co-operation, to train persons involved in safety planning, to make the good practices more known and to develop indicators of safety.

More resources are needed, both in the local and regional crime prevention, and on the national level. The Ministries should pay special attention to the activities that have not yet been properly made.

The most ambitious goals of the National Crime Prevention Programme have not yet come totally true. The program has not yet created such a common policy for action in the prevention of crime and in the promotion of safety, so that the impact of measures on crime would be taken into consideration in all public decision making. The Ministry of Justice has drafted instructions that would require Ministries, committees and other separate preparatory bodies to take into consideration an, to the extent possible, assess the impact on crime, also in connection with reforms that are not directly connected with criminal policy (crime proofing).

The follow-up report did not contain any research evaluation of the impacts of the program on crime level.

It is likely that the Government will make a new decision in principle on a national crime prevention programme for another 3-year period. The areas that have so far been carried out in a defective way are likely to be raised as focal points.