On October 1, 2003, the Public Order Act went into effect, standardizing public ordinances throughout the country.[2]
Local police departments
Seinäjoki police office
The police is divided into police departments, which encompass the area of multiple municipalities; municipalities do not have police forces of their own. The function of each police department is to maintain general law and order, prevent crime, investigate crime and other events that threaten public order and safety, to carry out traffic control and surveillance and promote traffic safety, and perform all other duties prescribed by law or otherwise assigned to the police in their area. Local police departments are organized into uniformed patrol police (Finnish: järjestyspoliisi, literally "order police") and criminal investigation police (Finnish: rikospoliisi, literally "criminal police").
Local police also processes licenses and permits such as gun licenses, national ID cards and passports, and furthermore, enforces immigration decisions by the Finnish Immigration Service. Local police must also be notified when organizing public events that may significantly influence local public security and traffic. Driving licenses were once issued by the local police, but since 2016 are issued by Traficom (Finnish Transport and Communications Agency).[3]
Alarm services are operated by Emergency Response Centres managed by the Ministry of the Interior in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.[4]
Finnish police car (Volkswagen Passat)Finnish police van (Volkswagen Transporter)Finnish police patrol boatFinnish mounted police in Helsinki during the state funeral of Mauno Koivisto.Finnish police officers in riot gearÅland department's patrol carFinnish motorcycle police riding on a countryside road at the Rally Finland event in 2010.
The National Bureau of Investigation (Finnish: Keskusrikospoliisi, KRP, Swedish: Centralkriminalpolisen, CKP) is responsible for major criminal investigations and certain types of specialist services such as fingerprint recognition. The NBI was formed in 1954 to assist the country's other police elements in efforts against crime, particularly that of a serious or deeply rooted nature.[7] A special concern of the NBI is white-collar crime. To carry out its mission, the force has advanced technical means at its disposal, and it maintains Finland's fingerprint and identification files. The NBI is not a part of the police, instead it is a separate nationwide law enforcement agency which assists local police with investigations. .[7]
The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Finnish: Suojelupoliisi, Supo, Swedish: Skyddspolisen, Skypo) is responsible for national security and the investigation of related crimes. The Supo was moved directly under the Ministry of the Interior in 2016.[9]
The National Traffic Police (Finnish: Liikkuva poliisi, Swedish: Rörliga polisen) was folded into the local police in 2013, thus local police is also responsible for highway patrol. Originally, local police districts were very small and had limited resources, so a separate mobile police organization was founded for riot control, alcohol law enforcement and reserve force duties. Political reliability and independence from local strongmen was also important because of the threat from fascists; indeed, the first task was to escort former president K.J. Ståhlberg back to his home after he was kidnapped by the Lapua Movement. This organization later evolved into a highway patrol. However, because of mergers, local police departments had become larger. Thus, the separate national organization was deemed redundant and traffic police units were subordinated to the local police departments instead, without change in the actual number of highway patrol officers.
Other nationally active formations
Special Intervention Unit (Finnish: Poliisin valmiusyksikkö), also known as "Bear Squad" (Finnish: "Karhu-ryhmä"), is a specialized armed response unit. It is officially part of the Helsinki Police Department.
In June 2008, the Finnish police established a Police Incident Response Team tasked with improving the prevention, detection and management of serious information security incidents.[10]
Vaativan ajotavan valvonta, also known as VATV- unit is a group of highly trained police officers specialized in high-speed driving and pursuits. The unit holds several unmarked high-performance cars ranging from 280 to 340 horsepower.[11]
Police ranks
The Finnish police uses the following ranks:[12][13][14]
Criminal investigators prefix their ranks with rikos-, "Detective", literally "Crime", e.g. rikostarkastaja.
Rank insignia on the shoulder epaulettes is all silver on blue with a silver button. The rank insignia for Senior Constable is a single bar, added with two chevrons for Sergeant. Police officers have bordered rows of oak leaves, with a Lion of Finland next to them. Additionally, on the collar there is pentagonal insignia that always has the emblem with laurel leaves and a border, but with colors slightly varying with rank; officers have a border around the pentagon.
Finnish police vans with visible bilingual markings
The most common patrol vehicle of police in Finland is Volkswagen Transporter, usually with 2.5 L diesel engines. In 2002 about one third of Finnish police cars were Transporters.[19] Transporters are also used by border guards, customs, and sotilaspoliisi (military police).
Due to the bilingualism of the country, the right side of the vehicles is marked in Finnish (POLIISI), the left side is marked in Swedish (POLIS). The siren used for the Finnish police cars are also used for the police of Sweden.
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