The police supervised young people’s intoxicant use in an intensified cam-paign on the weekend 2–4 June, the end of the school year. Particular tar-gets of supervision included unlawful consumption and possession of alco-hol by minors, and disturbances in public places. The amount of alcohol dis-posed of increased and the number of child welfare notifications was higher than in 2022. However, both figures were lower than in the years before Covid-19.
The police targeted the supervision at locations known to attract young peo-ple to convene, such as parks and schoolyards. As previously informed by local police departments, youngsters celebrated mainly without any major incidents. A worrying trend that was detected is that it is increasingly usual for juveniles to carry a sharp-edged weapon of some kind. No statistics were prepared on this issue, but the police have seen a lot of this.
In comparison with 2022, the amount of alcohol disposed of by the police in-creased and the number of child welfare notifications was higher. However, both figures were still clearly below the pre-Covid levels.
During the weekend’s supervision campaign, the police disposed of more than 1,500 liters of alcohol, of which almost 1,300 liters consisted of mild al-coholic beverages. The remaining 200 liters comprised wines or spirits. In 2022, the total amount of alcohol disposed of was around 800 liters.
- Even though the numbers have increased clearly year-on-year, they are nowhere near the level that they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, as in-dicated by monitoring data collected since 2010. Statistics show that before, 2,000 to 2,500 liters of alcohol have previously been disposed of. However, I must emphasize that the fact should not be ignored that this year’s figures were higher than those in recent years for alcohol consumption, says Chief Superintendent Tuomo Korhonen of the National Police Board.
The number of child welfare notifications submitted during the weekend, 442 in total, was about 200 higher than in 2022.
- Previous years’ supervision campaigns have resulted in 700–1200 child welfare notifications, while the figures for 2022 almost doubled to 442 notifications. Of course, the figures in our statistics are affected by the amount of working hours that the police have been able to allocate to intensified super-vision. This year, the police targeted slightly more than three thousand work-ing hours at this supervision campaign, says Korhonen.
In several areas, supervision was conducted in cooperation with the de-partments of youth services and social services, and the Regional State Administrative Agency. Without well-functioning, excellent cooperation be-tween the authorities, the statistics could be much worse.
The majority of parents also did the right thing and came to collect their tired-out youngsters home when requested to do so by the police.
- Parents are always responsible for their children and juveniles, and for what they do. This is something that can’t be stressed enough,” says Korhonen.
During the supervision campaign, the number of under 18-year-olds commit-ting an offence totaled 308, of whom 54 were under 15 years old. The police recorded 145 crime reports and fines related to alcohol during the campaign.
