Estonian bad boys
An article in today’s Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki’s largest-circulation daily newspaper, raises the spectre of bad-boy Estonians launching a massive crime spree in Helsinki. The accompanying image, reproduced here, offers chilling photographic “proof”. Close your windows and bolt your doors, Helsinki-ites; the Estonians are coming!
According to the article, unemployed young Estonians are being recruited to venture north to the Helsinki region to steal clothing from Finnish department stores, or drive burglary getaway cars, or carry stolen property. But the report offers scant evidence to support the theory that Estonian criminality in Finland is a growing menace.
The article asserts that “the number of crimes committed in Finland by Estonian citizens has … grown,” but the only solid statistical data offered in support is that four Estonians were convicted last year of burglaries in the Helsinki region. And a Helsinki Police Department spokesperson quoted in the story seems to refute the article’s premise: “Crimes that Estonian citizens typically commit in Finland are crimes of larceny, and traffic violations,” says Juha Laaksonen. Traffic violations? Well now, perhaps those boys in the photo are not quite so fearsome as we thought.
Now let’s be clear: Finland and Estonia are both enduring severe recessions. And history teaches us that two likely consequences of economic downturns are (1) higher crime rates, and (2) the tendency to fear and blame “foreigners” for a country’s problems. The first outcome may be unavoidable, but the second is not, and Helsingin Sanomat does its readers no favor by feeding these fears.
