Author(s)

R. Molarius, J. Keränen, H. Kojo & J. Wallenius

Abstract

Local community safety and security planning is considered an effective tool to increase the security of citizens. When the Ministry of the Interior launched a new internal safety programme in 2004, it also decided to provide support to the regional authorities to prepare these plans. For this reason, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland was asked to develop a common method and tool to identify and assess local threats. The developed method classifies threats in seven safety and security areas. In some of these, such as general vulnerability, criminality and major accidents, the method finds out which issues threaten people in their everyday lives. Some areas, such as disturbances and social exclusion, are regarded as consequences of other trouble, and the aim is to find the root causes of them. The method was established as a web-based software tool called ARTU. Keywords: community safety plans, safe community, web-based threat analyses, Finland. 1 Introduction The preparation of a community safety and security plan has been in place in Finland since 1999. The work started as part of the national crime prevention programme authorized by the Ministry of the Interior. Although the main aim of this programme was to prevent violence and crime, in many cases, the outcome was a broader view of general safety and wellbeing. The first Internal Safety and Security Programme was launched by the Government on 24 September 2004 [1]. The aim was to raise Finland to the safest country in Europe by 2015 by increasing safety and security in everyday life. Internal safety and security is defined as ‘a state of society where everyone can enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the rule of law and a safe

Keywords

community safety plans, safe community, web-based threat analyses, Finland