Indicator history

The most recent and significant programme containing policies aimed at combating racism is the Government's Internal Security Programme, which extends to the year 2015.

The Internal Security Programme identifies as one key area of security the need to improve the security of immigrants and ethnic minorities.The Internal Security Programme identifies as one key area of security the need to improve the security of immigrants and ethnic minorities. The programme inter alia outlines the following measures:

1. People moving to Finland permanently or temporarily will be offered more comprehensive information on Finnish legislation and the service system at the time of immigration and at various stages of the integration process.

2. Ethnic minority security issues will be incorporated in the planning system, and the involvement of ethnic minorities in planning will be increased. It will be ensured that all security authorities draw up equality plans and that local security plans are taken into account in municipal integration programmes.

3. A) It will be ensured that legislation and the judicial system can efficiently address racist crimes and racist messages on the internet by means of criminal law. The need for enacting an obligation for website hosts to monitor and remove material that fulfils the criteria of racist crime will be evaluated. Processing cases of racist crime will be enhanced by improving cooperation between the police and prosecutors so that the motives for crimes will be examined in sufficient detail. B) Consideration will be given to whether persons reporting an offence should be offered the opportunity to provide further information at the reporting stage or the pre-trial investigation stage for purposes of compiling statistics pertaining to discrimination crimes, such as the ground of discrimination or ethnic background. C) Agreement will be reached on the definition of racist crime used in the judicial system for the purpose of developing monitoring. D) The continuity of qualitative research on the progress of cases of suspected racist crime in the judicial system will be safeguarded, and sufficient research resources guaranteed.

The assessment of these measures is not possible, since many of them have been implemented only recently or have not been implemented at all. Most importantly, points 3B-D have not been implemented at all.