Racist treatment and ethnic profiling are a stain on the police. Worse yet, denial and playing down such serious problems ensure a bigger stain on the police. If you want to know about racism in the Finnish police, why not ask Finland’s Romany minority and other visible minorities like blacks.
The headline by Yle News, “Police rarely punished after complaints over racism,” speaks volumes about the problem. If racism is a problem in the Finnish police, why has so little been done to address this issue?
Certainly, minorities pay taxes and those taxes go to funding the police, who work for such people.

It should not come as a surprise why the credibility of the police among some minorities is low. The more the police deny these problems and do little to nothing about them, the more they will eat away its credibility.
Yle interviewed some police about racism in their ranks. They said it was common and rarely became public.
“Several serving officers interviewed by Yle gave examples of racist comments or inappropriate behavior from their colleagues towards minorities,” writes Yle News. “They said that racist comments were rarely challenged among police officers, and that led to an atmosphere of silent acceptance, even though only a minority of officers were guilty of such comments.”
Police interviewed in the article said that the lack of oversight allows the far-right to spread its “tentacles” within the force.
According to Yle News, only four internal disciplinary proceedings were brought and were suspected of racism. From 2018 to 2020, only thirty complaints were based on racism. Two police officers got a written warning during the period under review, while two were sacked.
Even if National Police Board member Mikko Eränen promises to do better, we have heard this same excuse repeatedly.