Abstract
The article describes and evaluates the development of urban security management in Finland since 2002. The evaluation is based on governmental safety and security strategies, 228 local safety plans from 2002 and the security strategies of the 10 biggest cities in 2012, along with interviews with risk managers or security managers, police chiefs and other experts. New security professions and professionals, such as security managers, have emerged in cities; the trend is towards regional safety and security management; crime prevention has been replaced by a broader concept of the co-production of security by state and municipal authorities (networks, strategic partnerships); contingency planning, civil protection and preparedness have been reconciled with local safety planning processes (in some cities). In addition, the military is looking for a new role in society. It is also argued that European Union membership and EU strategies are now such important drivers of development that Finland is moving from the so-called ‘Scandinavian model’ towards the ‘European model’ of security governance.
Introduction
This article deals with the development of urban security governance in Finland. The analysis of security governance is based on national, regional and local security strategies and programmes, and how they have been translated into practices and action plans. There are several dimensions to be explored, drawing on the work of Johnston and Shearing (2003:13): the ways of thinking that underlie security strategies (mentalities), the organizational forms used to implement those ways of thinking (institutions), the techniques used to turn mentalities into action (technologies) and the resulting actions (practices). Technologies can be a significant means of power and influence for urban networks and partnerships, which require analysis. In Finland, national strategies and their regional and local implementation provide the context of urban security governance. In turn, European Union (EU) programmes and strategies can be seen as meta-strategies, as organized forms of exercising power (Hörnqvist, 2007), as programmatic attempts to shape urban security governance and policies in member states. EU programmes such as the Tampere Programme for Freedom, Security and Justice 1999, The Hague Programme 2004 and the current Stockholm Programme 2009, as well as the EU Internal Security Strategy 2010, have been very influential in the development of Finland’s security governance and security strategies (Virta, 2011). Such is this influence, it is possible to argue that we are witnessing a shift away from the more established, welfare-oriented, ‘Scandinavian model’ of internal security towards a transnational, ‘European model’, whose contours and characteristics can be observed through an analysis of local security strategies.
Helsinki, the capital and the biggest city of Finland, has approximately 600,000 inhabitants. Therefore, ‘urban’ refers to quite small cities (compared with many European metropolises). However, there has been a strong trend towards the centralization of public administration since 2004. The government is currently working on reducing the number of municipalities (merging most of the small municipalities and fusing them with cities) and the number of local police departments (from 24 to 11). The development of local security governance is towards regional strategies and regional implementation, which means that cities, small municipalities and rural areas are in many ways becoming more interdependent.
Since 1999 there has been a shift from a focus on crime and crime prevention to security, insecurity and threats to security in government strategies and also in various authorities’ strategies and practices. It is not just that crime has been re-conceptualized as a security risk (Zedner, 2009: 71); it can also be argued that the very broad definition of security (originally from the context of International Relations) has led to an ever-expanding field of security. Through the EU and national strategies, internal policy is giving way to an expansive logic of security. As a result of political compromises, the strategies of internal security include almost everything from domestic injuries to terrorism, as discussed later in the article. Compared with more traditional crime prevention, several elements turn security governance and the prevention of threats into a very challenging exercise for practitioners: the network structure and model of contemporary governance, the nature of security knowledge (preventing the unknown or the unthinkable), the pre-crime logic of security, and the global and ambiguous nature of the threats and crimes to be prevented (Virta, 2013a).
The Finnish welfare society has long been stable, with no significant social divisions and rather low crime. Like the other Nordic social democratic regimes (notably Sweden), Finland has been marked by a universalistic, generous welfare system and has exhibited relatively limited income differentials. The Nordic social democracies have the lowest imprisonment rates and they have succeeded in sustaining relatively humane and moderate penal policies (Crawford, 2009; Lappi-Seppälä, 2011). However, penal policy is not seen as a vital part of security governance and management in Finland. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is responsible for penal policy and prisons, but the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is responsible for internal security, rescue and emergency services, and the police. In the MOJ, crime prevention policy-making belongs to the Department of Criminal Policy and to a unit called the National Council of Crime Prevention. It is an expert and cooperation agency with a nine-person secretariat. In the MOI, crime prevention is a part of the wider policy-making domain of internal security and policing. The two ministries cooperate in policy-making but their relationship is competitive. Recently, the two serious shooting incidents at schools in Jokela in 2007 and in Kauhajoki in 2008 have led to an intensification of cooperation between the police and other authorities, and between the ministries and local authorities. The MOI was responsible for the preparation and implementation of the Internal Security Programmes of 2004, 2008 and 2012. In these programmes, traditional crime prevention measures have been replaced by more social preventive measures (with prevention of social exclusion as a main objective) and by specific measures such as the prevention of violent extremism and radicalization (Virta, 2013b).
Domestic, European and global developments in reaction to security threats have changed the way of thinking about security governance. Preparedness, civic protection, resilience and contingency planning (even critical infrastructure protection) seem to be taking over prevention and welfare policies, or at least these are to be reconciled with prevention and welfare policies. This is a new phenomenon, but it is seen both in government strategies (for instance in the Security Strategy for Society, Government Resolution 16.12.2010) and in some local safety planning processes and new strategy drafts for the four-year period 2013–16 (for instance the draft security and preparedness plan of Tampere 2013–16).
As such, it is argued that Finland is moving from the Scandinavian model towards the European model. The Scandinavian or Nordic model (Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway) has been characterized by many as consensual, social democratic and welfare oriented, non-punitive (a low imprisonment rate) and inclusive (see, for instance, Crawford, 2009; Esping-Andersen, 1990; Lappi-Seppälä, 2011). The model covers criminal policy, penal policy, crime and crime prevention policies. The European model has its roots in the establishment of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice in Tampere in 1999. The multi-annual EU programmes (after Tampere, The Hague Programme 2004 and the Stockholm Programme 2009), together with other European internal security and policing strategies and common policies in home and justice affairs, have accomplished a European internal security field. This has led to a policy convergence in member states. The European Commission has been an important actor in promoting harmonization of crime prevention measures, law enforcement practices and urban safety policies, and in creating a performance regime for monitoring the development in member states. (Crawford, 2009; Virta, 2013a). The European model is, therefore, focused more on internal security, on preventing global common threats (notably terrorism, organized crime, social exclusion, illegal immigration) and in local-level practices. For instance, community policing is seen as a vital tool for preventing violent radicalization, and common measures and practices have been adopted, to be implemented locally. What was earlier seen as a question of national security has now been localized, and is also a part of the policy field of urban security. The shift towards this European model can be understood by reference to the history of local safety planning since the late 1990s.
Local safety planning model, 1999
Finland has a centralized state police organization. Anglo-American community policing has been implemented since 1996 but there has been a long tradition of the community policing style, called the village police, since the 1960s. The police enjoy a great deal of public trust and confidence (Kääriäinen and Siren, 2011). The police remain the principal actor in security management and governance. Local security networks can be seen as an outcome of community policing policy. The formation of partnerships and networks amongst statutory, commercial and not-for-profit organizations has been the main objective of community policing since 1999. From the beginning, the purpose of networking was local safety planning and local safety strategies and their implementation. 1 In practice, in 1999 three main means of implementing community policing were a local security management model (in a few big cities; a strategic, holistic approach based on multi-agency cooperation), a problem-oriented programme model (in small cities and the countryside; short time schedules, few participants, mostly youth projects) and a neighbourhood policing model (in cities; area-based, contacts with the public made easy by personal mobile phones, foot patrols, etc.) (Virta, 2002a: 193).
There was an interesting shift in thinking and discourse in 1999. This was partly due to some community policing implementation failures but mainly due to policy transfer from other western police organizations. Community policing was renamed and repositioned as ‘basic police work’, which in turn is a part of local security management and governance. The main objectives were policy-making (local safety plans), problem identification (citizen surveys, crime analysis) and problem-solving (Strategy of the Police – MOI, 1999). At the same time, the Crime Prevention Council (of the MOJ) published a national crime prevention programme (Turvallisuustalkoot – MOJ, 1999). In both strategies, crime prevention was still central but the main focus and ‘language’ were about providing security and developing local security networks. Local security networks were not well-organized strategic or operational partnerships and they lacked proper management and leadership structures. Participation was voluntary and depended on local needs and interests.
From the beginning, the formation of partnerships for the co-production of security has been in most cases a police initiative, mainly because the police have the crime prevention and security expertise needed in the first phase of the process. Partnerships varied in size and type. Local coalitions included representatives from governmental agencies, municipalities, private businesses (chambers of commerce representatives), voluntary organizations and churches. The main aim was to set policy objectives and make a local (or regional) safety plan (security strategy, policing plan, crime prevention plan – the name depended on the specific focus defined in a policy-making process at the local level). At the end of September 2001, 203 cities and municipalities had some kind of safety plan. In many cases, small municipalities had made regional plans together. There were 448 cities and municipalities in Finland in 2001 (Virta. 2002a: 197).
Municipalities are independent (municipal self-governance is in the Constitution of Finland), which means that state authorities like the police cannot order them to do anything unless there is legislation, which is not the case in security cooperation. The Police Law, on the other hand, is very clear in the sense that the police have to prevent crime, also together with other authorities and actors in society. Local safety planning as a strategy of community policing relied on voluntary participation and persuasion. In many cities and municipalities, the authorities thought that security ought to be the responsibility of the police. It was not seen as a shared responsibility. However, cities had their own ‘Rules of Public Order’, social security tasks and so on, but they were not seen as security tasks.
According to the evaluation report of 228 local safety plans from 2000–1 (Virta, 2002b), the most common partners of the police were social and health authorities, youth workers, schools, environmental design officers (including traffic), churches, small businesses and citizens’ associations. In some cities and municipalities, other partners were the rescue and emergency services, public prosecutors, housing authorities, private security companies, the media, the courts, insurance companies, universities and day care centres. The coalition of partners in early partnerships and networks was dependent on personal contacts and the interests of the police chief and other authorities’ willingness to cooperate with the police. The size of the partnerships, or local safety planning groups, varied from 5 to 25 persons, who were representatives of their organizations. Finnish cities have no mayors and contacts with elected politicians were rare (Virta, 2002b: 4–13).
Most of the safety plans (186) included a description of the network, a list of members, some crime statistics and other background information, identification of problems, goals, means and some kind of follow-up method. Usually the only statistics and data were crime statistics, but in some cases there were results from citizen surveys. Social scientific and criminological knowledge, in particular researcher consultations, were used in Tampere but this was exceptional. Otherwise, the expertise and knowledge used was very dependent on the personal skills (the occupational subculture) and education of senior police officers and other authorities who were involved in planning processes. The contents of the safety plans were surprisingly similar; the most important security- and crime-related social problems defined were youth crime, social exclusion of young people and, in general, alcohol and drug use. Many cities had more or less copied the lists from the national crime prevention programme Turvallisuustalkoot (MOJ, 1999).
The first wave of local safety plans (1999–2003) witnessed a significant expansion in the formation of local security partnerships. This expansion was especially significant in cities where the safety planning process was integrated into the more established annual welfare strategy. Some cities invested in special staff (new professional posts such as ‘security manager’, ‘risk manager’, ‘security coordinator’) for steering and monitoring the implementation of the safety plans produced by local partnerships. However, in general, processes of translating safety plans into action were not evaluated and measured, nor were the outcomes of these plans. Some of the plans existed only on paper – plans were made because the police were ordered to make them and the Supreme Command of the Police, in the MOI, collected them from local police departments, but there was little evidence of actual cooperation in practice. There was a gap between the strategic priorities of national authorities and implementation at the local level (Virta, 2005).
Urban security networks and partnerships are also sites of (political) power and struggle for influence. In multi-agency crime prevention and community safety policy-making, differential power relations encompass the relative capacity of organizations and actors, drawing upon material and human resources, to achieve desired outcomes, and power is often exercised through the power to define, – to set agendas, direct resources and determine the contours of policy (Crawford, 1997: 133). It is also important to consider the contested connotations of network discourse: the various positive attributes of networks (non-hierarchical, communal, consensual) but also the more pejorative connotations (closed, secretive, undemocratic and exclusionary) (Hay, 1998: 40).
In local networking the process itself – coalition-building and the selection of key partners – can be understood in terms of a ‘mobilization of bias’ that structures local security in favour of certain interests while repressing others. In Tampere, the process of partnership formation started in 1997 as a part of the development of community policing by the city police department. The focus was on problem-solving and multi-agency cooperation. The police made decisions on selecting the key partners and chose the most important traditional partners (for example social authorities) and the most cooperative partners (for example churches). The party-politicization of the process was intentionally avoided by the police. A consensus on the goals and priorities and the definition of security was achieved rather easily, mostly because of the conflict avoidance techniques employed in the initial formation of the partnership. However, this consensus could be characterized as a ‘coercive’ consensus: participants did not question the common goal (security) or the means. According to the police, conflict avoidance methods were used because there was ‘the need to get things done’ (avoiding politicization meant, literally, avoiding trouble). Police knowledge (crime statistics mainly) dominated the discourse from the beginning of the process, and the strategy group (17 members) was chaired by the police.
Most of the 228 local safety plans in 2002 were the result of a police initiative, partly because the police are the only authority obliged in the legislation to cooperate but also because the police are the main actor in the security field. Voluntary sector agencies were involved, but most of the strategies were dominated by networks of statutory authorities. The business sector was also involved, especially in big cities, and ‘security’ was used in marketing cities for the purposes of improving inward investment and tourism (‘civic boosterism’). Residents’ associations and citizens in general were mostly excluded and seldom heard. Local safety planning processes and plans did not encourage participation or establish proper channels or access to decision-making.
In summary, the development of security governance in Finland since the advent of the local safety planning model could be characterized as a process of ‘securitization’. However, in the Finnish language there are two words for securitization, namely ‘turvallistaminen’ and ‘turvallistuminen’. ‘Turvallistaminen’ means an intentional and political act, and as a concept it carries with it certain totalitarian connotations (a search for total social order). ‘Turvallistuminen’ is an unintentional consequence of policies and strategies. It may even refer to the collateral damage of governing strategies and does not carry any totalitarian or ideological connotations. Therefore, it is argued that securitization is a consequence of local safety planning processes, but it is intentional only in terms of bureaucratic management and a top-down mentality (the authorities know what is best for citizens or residents). Power is exercised in order to get Internal Security Programmes implemented and local safety plans done. Power analysis and political analysis of local safety planning processes, and of urban security policies and governance in general, reveal that the implementation and translation of national strategies into action can be contested; there can be political and ideological differences, business interests and other competitive interests but these are recognized only when the focus of analysis is broadened beyond the decisions and practices of local security networks within which a mobilization of bias is evident.
Steering urban security governance at the national level: Internal Security Programmes 2004, 2008 and 2012
Internal Security Programmes have been included in each government’s strategy portfolios since 2004. Local safety planning was originally part of community policing, but the language of partnerships and networks rapidly took over the discourse and policy-making of the MOI. This was partly owing to the lack of resources of the police, and partly owing to the development towards a more strategic and holistic view of security governance. A special Secretariat of Internal Security was established in the MOI, and the main task of the Secretariat was first to prepare an Internal Security Programme with the other ministries. Social context has to be taken into account in analyses of security policy-making both at the national and at the local level. Specifically, there is a difference between the political and social context of the welfare society and the political and social context of the risk society. The shift from welfare to risk management, and thus from the established Scandinavian model of social integration to a European model of internal security, is most clearly articulated in the first national Internal Security Programme.
This programme, entitled A Safer Community, was ratified by the national government in September 2004. It was prepared by nine ministries and a number of experts from different fields of security. The most important threat to internal security, according to the programme, was a breakdown in social cohesion, particularly as a consequence of other threats whose origin were external to Finnish society. This accorded with EU-level discourse on problems of transnational organized crime, terrorism and illegal immigration: the troika of problems that dominated the focus of the Tampere and Hague programmes for creating an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. The strategic priorities of the Finnish Internal Security Programme were prevention of crime and civil disturbances, reduction of violence, reduction of organized crime, counterterrorism, improvement in victims’ services, prevention of injuries and minor accidents, and improvement in border and customs services.
Local safety planning in cities and municipalities was regarded as an important means of implementing many of these strategic priorities. However, according to evaluation research there were implementation failures in some parts of the country (Virta, 2005). These were mainly the result of a lack of proper incentives (no extra resources from government), the independent status of cities and municipalities (and their consequent refusal to accept new tasks), the police performance management system, which did not support prevention and networking, the lack of a tradition of long-term multi-agency strategic and operational cooperation, and the fact that the willingness and capacity to work together were over-reliant on personal relationships, which collapsed as and when particular individuals left a partnership.
The second Internal Security Programme, Safety First (2008), had a vision that Finland could be the safest country in Europe in 2015. However, there was no consensus among the authorities on how to measure this. The second programme was prepared by more than 200 experts from 12 ministries and numerous other bodies. Society will face many new challenges and the programme tried to cover them all: social exclusion, domestic incidents, relations between groups of people in multicultural communities, violence, major incidents and catastrophes (owing to climate change, maritime security threats, etc.), the vulnerability of society as a whole, cross-border crime, cyber crime, terrorism and violent radicalization. In addition, local safety planning was seen as a means of reducing violence and minor incidents, preventing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related violence and crime, and taking account of the security of ethnic minorities.
There were several special governmental initiatives supporting local security partnerships, for instance a special programme for the Security of Cities (2010). The Secretariat of Internal Security of the MOI has had a permanent working committee developing and supporting local safety planning and urban security since 2004, chaired by the National Police Commissioner. The police still have the main operational street-level responsibility for urban security, but local safety planning processes have become more systematic and better organized, when contrasted with the early phase of their development in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they are now often led by municipal authorities not just the police. The interdependencies between security and social exclusion, poverty, unemployment, alcohol and drugs, levels of crime, issues of environmental design, social and health services and so on have become more visible and awareness has increased. The MOI, the police and other authorities have had several conferences and seminars per year, in all parts of the country. These events have been important in the training and education of authorities and other actors involved in local safety planning processes and implementation.
The third Internal Security Programme, Safer Tomorrow, was ratified by the government in June 2012. The programme is more of an action plan by nature, being more concrete and coherent than the first and second programmes. It includes 64 goals, of which two-thirds are concerned with social prevention (prevention of social exclusion, crime prevention, prevention of domestic and other minor incidents, improving safety and security in schools and public places, work places and shops and shopping malls). In addition, there are separate strategies (appendices to the programme), for instance on preventing violent extremism, the safety and security of businesses and companies, and the safety and security of older people. Local safety planning is seen as a continuing process, and in many cities it has been reconciled with the normal annual strategic cycle of administration. The role of the police does not dominate this planning any more. Cities have taken the lead in many cases, and the holistic view of safety and security is seen in several new local or regional strategies and drafts for the next period. This holistic concept of security has, however, become a means of shifting the overall emphasis of security away from a welfare orientation towards that of risk management and national defence, and this is clarified through reference to current reforms.
Owing to the ongoing reform in public administration, including the police, in Finland there has been confusion about the division of tasks, future organization and responsibilities. Reorganization of security governance is a part of this reform in many ways. The new state regional authorities will have a responsibility for implementing the national Internal Security Programme, but cities are independent in this respect. Big cities such as Helsinki and Tampere have built their own partnerships and organizational arrangements for safety planning and security governance, based on their own priorities. In addition, there are organizations such as Councils of the Regions, which are organizations of independent cities and municipalities, and they too can form security networks and clusters, on a voluntary basis. There are many kinds of innovations in security governance – for instance, the Security Cluster of Pirkanmaa (Pirkanmaa is the name of the region in which Tampere is in the middle and many smaller cities and municipalities are around it, and the Council of Pirkanmaa Region is the host of the cluster).
The bigger picture of this reorganization reveals further complexity, particularly in relation to the increasing role of the military in internal security. The Government Resolution Security Strategy for Society (2010) is concerned with securing the vital functions of Finnish society. These are the management of government affairs, international activities, defence capability, internal security, the functioning of the economy and infrastructure, the population’s income security and capability to function and its psychological resilience to crisis. Internal security is part of the strategy. As a consequence, the Defence Forces will be an important partner for the police, the rescue and emergency services and other statutory authorities, commercial organizations and the voluntary sector in urban security governance. The term ‘comprehensive concept of security’ has been adopted widely, and it already features in some new drafts for local security plans and strategies; the language of preparedness, continuity and contingency planning, civic protection, critical infrastructure protection and cyber security is starting to replace a previous emphasis on the language of social crime prevention in these plans and strategies.
Governing urban security through networks and partnerships
This analysis of the contemporary field of urban security governance is based on qualitative content analysis of the security strategies of seven large cities in Finland (Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Espoo, Rovaniemi, Kuopio and Oulu) and two regions (Central Finland and Päijät-Häme). The strategies are from 2010–12 and they will be updated in 2013–14 (Virta, 2013b). Urban security governance still has no special legislation but is based on the tasks of the authorities required to implement the national government’s programmes and strategies. No special joint governance support structures in administration have emerged. Many of the strategies concentrate on coordinating safety and security-related programmes, projects and activities and the responsibilities of various authorities and other actors. However, this coordination function often generates innovative projects, common enthusiasm and enhanced cooperation in problem-solving. The weakness of the process is that there is neither systematic performance management of partnerships’ achievements nor any evaluation of their outcomes. It also seems that, whereas cooperation at the strategic and policy-making level is more intensive, at the operational street level cooperation is still case by case, project based and often lacking continuity. Urban security is still ‘managed’ by the responsible authorities in their own organizational silos, even if there is a lot of good will and indeed political will to develop cooperation across these organizations.
At the strategic level, city and municipal authorities, the police and the rescue and emergency services are the main actors responsible for urban security governance in Finland. The main objective is to share responsibility, and the local safety planning processes are the main means of implementing national strategies and programmes. As indicated in Table 1, there are a variety of actors involved in local safety planning and formulating the contents and goals for the four-year periods of security governance and management. Private security organizations are included in the coalition in Oulu. Some cities have included civil society actors (such as residents’ associations) more than the others. Current local safety plans are implementing the Internal Security Programmes of Finland, whereas the first wave of the plans (from 1999 on) implemented the community policing strategy of the police and the national crime prevention programme of 1999. Therefore the focus in earlier plans and processes was also on crime prevention. The Internal Security Programmes, which are in line with European internal security and home and justice strategies, have guided local safety plans and urban security governance since 2004. The contents and goals of the current safety plans vary too, but the main focus is on prevention of social exclusion (which has been the main goal of the Internal Security Programmes since 2004). There are also new goals such as a reduction of tensions between groups of people and protection of critical infrastructure. Contingency planning and preparedness have been reconciled in safety planning in some cities. These new elements come from the Security Strategy for Society of the Ministry of Defence (2010) and from the extremism prevention strategies of the Finnish government. Crime prevention is included in local safety plans but it has a minor role. The analysis of city and regional strategies demonstrates a shift in the language, contents and thus the governing mentalities informing internal security from the Scandinavian to the European model.
Coalitions of partners and the main focus or objectives in the safety plans of seven cities and two regions.
Conclusions
In this article, urban security management has been conceptualized in terms of the ‘governing through networks’ model of security programmes. Because this model is not concerned with questions of who governs and how they govern, or with the results and outcomes of their governance, the analytical focus is on the power of governing mentalities – the linguistic ways in which problems of government, such as internal security, can be articulated and what this can tells us about significant policy shifts. It would, of course, also be useful to analyse behaviour in networks and factors such as trust and interdependence (Entwistle, 2010: 163). It is suggested that comparative analysis should be multidisciplinary (criminology, political science, public administration and management studies, economy, sociology) and that the development and political and social circumstances of each country ought to be understood. In these terms, this article provides a starting point for recognizing the qualities of internal security policy-making in Finland and the apparent convergence towards a policy agenda informed by the European Union’s concern with the external origins of internal security threats to member states from organized criminality, international terrorism and illegal immigration.
In Finland, the main drivers for the shift from the welfarist Scandinavian model towards the European model have been the influential European Union security and policing programmes and strategies, which have brought internal security, national security (notably in forms of counterterrorism), threat analysis, risk management, resilience, immigration and social exclusion into the agendas and practices of urban security governance and management. In addition, welfare society and social security systems have become more contested politically, while the social democratic approach is losing its leading role in thinking and the elements of the Scandinavian model (consensual politics and criminal policy-making, penal policy, low imprisonment, crime and crime prevention) are not core issues of contemporary urban security governance and management. This is certainly what is suggested by an analysis of key shifts in policy rhetoric about internal security in Finland since the late 1990s.