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Thu, 06 Oct, 2016 12:06:24 AM FTimes – STT Report, Oct 6  Interior Minister Paula Risikko, the National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen spoke on occasion of releasing survey report on people´s trust on police in Helsinki on Wednesday. Photo – Lehtikuva. The trust of Finns in the police has not budged an inch, according to the police barometer published on Wednesday.
About 96 per cent of the respondents, according to the barometer, trust police officers much or very much. This figure is among the highest in the world.
“This reflects the fact that the police have been very successful in their operations, in encounters with people,” said Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen.
Almost equally strong is the belief in the police to maintain order and security.
Nearly 90 per cent respondents viewed that the police are able to maintain public order and ensure safety either substantially or wholly.
Although figures on trust in the police touch on North Korean elections levels, faith in fire and rescue personnel is even higher. The next most trusted operators are the emergency response centre dispatchers and the police.
Interior Minister Paula Risikko reassured those citizens who worry about the number of police officers, especially about fewer police officers in sparsely populated areas.
“We are not making any changes to the police station network,” the minister reassured.
The respondents’ concerns about the number of visible police officers on the streets is probably explained by the fact that, on average, the time for the police to respond after contact has grown somewhat longer, except in the most urgent cases.
The police barometer examined citizens’ perceptions of policing and the internal security of the state.
The market research firm Taloustutkimus conducted the survey through interviewing 1,000 Finns aged between 15 and 79 years.
The study has been commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior eight times between 1999 and 2014.
Meanwhile, law-enforcers have used firearms on several occasions this year.
A motorist was killed when police opened fire on him on Highway 4 near the Orimattila area in Päijät Häme on October 2.
In May, police fired gunshots at the legs of a man in Helsinki. In that incident, police were pursuing a wanted person, who tried to escape and posed a threat with both a bladed weapon and pepper spray.
In April, police shot an aggressively behaving man in Lahti. At that time, the police said they had received a private home security alert, when the raging man also attacked police officers.
In March, police used firearms in Petäjävesi in an incident where the man who was shot died. According to the police, the man threatened to shoot police officers.
Last year, the so-called Oulu Ax Killer was killed by a police bullet.
The police in total generally fire their weapons a couple of dozen times each year, often as warning shots.
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