Violence against police doubles as researcher warns over attackers’ motives

Violence against police is continuing to increase, with police recording twice as many cases of violent resistance to a public official last year as in 2010, Yle reports.

Police recorded 855 such cases nationwide last year. From January to July 2026, they had already recorded nearly 600 cases.

Police inspector Marko Heikkilä of the National Police Board said even minor injuries sustained in violent incidents can lead to absence from work or permanent physical harm. Injuries ranging from minor to serious occur frequently, he said, while fatal incidents are rare.

Henri Rikander, a doctor of law and associate professor of police law at the University of Eastern Finland, said the violence could be linked to increased drug use, general social distress, opposition to authority and mental health problems.

He said the most concerning development was that violence was being used with the intention of causing harm, rather than simply to escape.

Although the law on weapons has recently been amended to impose tougher penalties for possessing an unlicensed firearm, Rikander said knives and other bladed weapons were still easy to carry and that some people were willing to use them.

He also said worsening social conditions had changed the role of the police, whose work increasingly involved addressing problems.

Most violent incidents occur during arrests. Rikander said police may now be more likely to record an incident as violent resistance, adding that a culture of tolerating such behaviour was coming to an end.

He called for new research into the kinds of people who use violence when encountering police and the other offences typically associated with it.

Heikkilä said police regularly train for violent situations and continue to develop protective equipment and tools for using force. Police have also used an electric device that fires darts, commonly known as a conducted energy weapon, for several years.