A Bear City tackles violence

Pori is known as the events capital of Finland and as "Bear City", from its Swedish name Björneborg.The bear symbolizes strength, which is a quality drawn upon in local safety work. Pori is tackling safety collectively as cooperation is a key success factor for the events capital. However, even more efforts need to be put into safety, since according to 2009 survey, the inhabitants of Pori have a weaker image of their city as a safe place compared to the inhabitants of other large cities in Finland.

Crimes and disorder are concentrated in very small areas within cities. In Pori the "Hot spot" method would operate as a common tool in multi-professional collaboration. It would be used for gathering information for the partners involved and locating as precisely as possible the points on a joint map where crimes, disorder and accidents have occurred and the reasons behind them.

Like elsewhere, disorder and violence in Pori are linked to excessive use of alcohol. According to the police statistics, violent crime is on the increase, which is a cause for great concern. The joint task is to reduce violence so that safety is improved and the human suffering caused by violence and the ensuing costs are decreased.

A work to reduce alcohol abuse is being tackled with determination and more effective ways to reduce violence are being sought. The city focuses on reducing violence particularly through safety measures that cross administrations, with the aim of improving the safety of public places. Primarily, violence is prevented through co-operation between multiple professional groups. In addition, it is important to make effective use of measures to prevent violent incidents, whereby situational violence can be deterred, etc. It is equally important to combat the factors leading to violence. Furthermore, harm caused by violence can be reduced for instance through victim support.

At the beginning of the violence reduction programme the partners made an assessment of the current situation and analyse the local operating environment. A comprehensive local operating environment analysis helps to clarify the key threats to safety. In this way, the subjects and issues are specified, which enables the targeting of customized measures. It is crucial to take the local conditions into account because there is no single solution for the reduction of violence.

It must be decided locally how to carry out the work and which meth- ods to use. Pori's core concept is that influencing the consumption and availability of alcohol is one of the key means of reducing violence. According to the international criminology "Hot Spots" study, only 3.5% of the addresses in a city account for 50% of the crimes. Another significant result of the study was that disturbances were not merely moved around the corner by intervention, but eliminated. The same phenomenon can also be seen in Finland. Use of the "Hot spot" method makes it possible to find the areas and places where problems accumulate. It promotes recognition of the phenomena and widens the knowledge of the various authorities about the situation, such as the background reasons that affect the build-up of violence. In Pori, better awareness of the situation is a part of the efforts required in the local safety work at the current time.