Staff cut deteriorates police services

The demands of police work have been fundamentally impacted by the combination of an evolving operating environment and continuous staff reductions over the past decade.

“People expect our services to be quickly available while crimes are prevented and investigated efficiently. However, the statistics show that our services have deteriorated as a whole. Response times and criminal investigation times have increased,” said National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen at the swearing-in ceremony of new police officers at the Police University College in Tampere on Friday.

The police receive more than one million emergency assignments each year, and roughly 70,000 of these are urgent.

The average response time in urban municipalities is ten minutes, while in densely populated municipalities it is 20 and in rural municipalities nearly 30 minutes.

“The differences grow even more when you look at the statistics in detail. In Helsinki last year, a patrol was on the scene in five minutes. In Savukoski, you had to wait well over an hour for help to come”, Kolehmainen said.

About 140 police officers, most of them this year’s graduates, swore their ethical oaths in Friday’s swearing-in ceremony.