Page 4 - The police annual report 2016 annual report 2016

4 THE POLICE, ANNUAL REPORT 2016
MONITORING AND ALERTS
THE POLICE have been able to improve the street safety index to 99.7 in 2016 through visible surveillance of public order and safety, themed activities and emergency rescue operations. In 2015, the corresponding index was 98.4. The street safety index comprises the weighted number, relative to population, of robberies, assaults, vandalism and drunk driving cases that occurred in public places and were reported to the police.
Improving the street safety index has required the police to switch their focus between different types of duties, as the total number of police personnel, measured in person-work years, fell by two per cent in 2016. In particu- lar, traf c surveillance and special investiga- tions by the police have been subjected to downsizing, while the objective has been to maintain monitoring and emergency response resources at their previous levels.
During 2016, the police had to provide safety at different major protests, some of which were violent. In violent protests, the police arriving on scene were often selected as the target. Of these types of protests, the one with the longest duration was the protest at the Hanhikivi nuclear power plant construction site in Pyhäjoki in the spring; it caused EUR 240,000 of extra costs to the police alone.
In addition to the extra costs, the protests tied up a signi cant amount of resources, making them unavailable to the normal monitoring and emergency reporting activities of the police. The increase in the number of pro- tests and their becoming more violent has also brought about the need for additional resources, which has increased the number of resource requests to other police departments.
THE INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF ASYLUM SEEKERS POSES A CHALLENGE TO THE POLICE
The change in the operating environment posed challenges to the police. Police person- nel spent signi cantly more working hours on assignments related to asylum seekers, their transportation, and the support of the opera- tions of the registration centre set up in Tornio.
Visible patrolling by the police at the reception centres and in their vicinity has kept the situ- ation peaceful. In some locations, the use of resources in these activities has had a negative impact on the operational readiness time of the police.
The operational readiness time of the police is affected by the location, number and distance of the assignments, and the location and number of patrols. The police have aimed
to use intelligence-led methods to target its resources to those locations and at those times that experience dictates will have the most incidents and disturbances.
Taking into account the increase in the num- ber of assignments and the use of resources in additional assignments caused by the asylum seeker situation, the police met the perfor- mance targets set.
INCREASE IN URGENT ASSIGNMENTS
The number of police assignments increased in both urgent emergency assignments and non-urgent assignments related to maintain- ing order.
In 2016, the police carried out a total of 1,048,120 emergency assignments. The total number of emergency assignments increased by 6,310 assignments from 2015 (1,041,810).
Assignments in urgency category A increased by 5.8 per cent from the previous year (an increase of 3,930 assignments).
Assignments in urgency category C increased by 9.5 per cent from the previous year (an increase of 44,795 assignments). The increase