National Programme for Reducing Violence (summary)
The decision in principle for the National Programme for Reducing Violence was made by the Government 14 December 2006. The programme was prepared by the National Council for Crime Prevention. The programme is aimed to be used until the end of 2008 alongside of the National Crime Prevention Programme and the Internal Security Programme.
"The Finnish government is preparing a decision in principle for the National programme for reducing violence. The National Council for Crime Prevention finalised the programme at the beginning of this year (2005). Large group of experts took part in preparing the draft. Now the programme proposal has circulated for comments within different organisations and authorities. Thus far, the programme proposal has been positively welcomed.
The programme proposal includes all central forms of violence. It concentrates especially on criminal homicide, which in its wideness is the main central marker that separates Finnish violence from that of Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries, but also on violence committed by and against children and young people, violence against women, violence on workplaces and on racist violence. As drinking with the aim of getting drunk is a strong factor in Finnish violence, attempts to reduce violence in Finland cannot succeed without changing the Finnish drinking habits. The programme proposal includes many suggestions which would generally reduce alcohol consumption, especially alcohol consumption with the intention to get drunk. The proposal also includes propositions on how to influence drinking situations in such a way that the risk of violence on those situations would decrease.
As a whole the programme proposal consists of a wide group of actions of which each individual action may play a limited role in violence reduction, but the totality of these measures should bring aimed results in effective violence reduction. The proposal includes activities that aim to reduce violence and activities which focus from personal risk factor to the society as a whole. The proposal also suggests activities that aim to reduce the risk of violence in situations where violence has often been used and in the event of violent situations, the proposal suggests actions that aim to reduce the likelihood of the situation resulting with serious harm caused to the victim.
The programme is aimed to be used alongside of the National Crime Prevention Programme (1999) and the Internal Security Programme, which was approved by the government in autumn 2004, in such a way that violence prevention would be taken into an account in all local safety strategies which are based on comprehensive safety concepts."
