A Scrutiny of the Police’s Operating Environment in Finland

Abstract

The attention of the police has turned increasingly to the question of how to become smarter in accomplishing their tasks and in fulfilling their duties in society. The police services in most Western countries appear to follow the same path; the faith is invested in better strategies and approaches built upon systematically collected and thoroughly analysed data, which provide intelligence and result in more knowledge-intensive and thus also smarter policing. The various trends and tendencies in the police’s operating environment are an obvious target for such a scrutiny. This article describes experiences from Finland in accomplishing such an analysis.