Finland has been hit by several deadly school attacks. After the shootings in Jokela in 2007 – when a total of nine people, including the perpetrator, died – and the one in Kauhajoki in 2008 – eleven dead, including the perpetrator – the police, together with the Ministry of the Interior and several other authorities, drew up a list of measures.
200 points
200 points were written, covering everything from stricter gun laws to education for schools and teachers.
A very important point is that we in the police will provide schools with guidelines on how to handle threats, says Police Inspector Marko Savolainen at the Finnish Police Board.
It is also absolutely crucial that there is good communication between schools and the police. The school must feel that they can inform the police at as early a stage as possible. The Finnish police have trained personnel at schools. Sometimes the security officer, sometimes the principal. They have taken a four-day course and then set up security lines for their respective schools.
Savolainen says that the importance of sharing information about people who can be perceived as threats is crucial for the possibility of preventing attacks. And for information to be shared, trust is required.
It's about trust between students and staff, and about the communication flow between the school and the police, he says.
He continues:
The police have a system that makes it possible for when the school, or someone else, contacts them with information, they get to answer a number of questions that make it possible to analyze how great the potential threat is. The police then make an assessment of whether an intervention is required. Many times it's about mental health issues, and then it's not a police matter.
Impossible to stop completely
Despite the list of measures, which, according to Savolainen, has helped the Finnish police to predict and stop concrete threats, it is not possible to completely protect against school attacks.
It's very difficult to predict attacks. It's not possible to stop them all beforehand, it's impossible. But there are things that make it possible to identify people who are on the verge of doing something, says Savolainen.
2007: An 18-year-old shot and killed eight people at a school in Jokela north of Helsinki and then took his own life.
2008: A total of eleven people, including the perpetrator, died at a vocational college in Kauhajoki in southern Ostrobothnia.
2019: A woman was killed and about ten people were injured when a man armed with a sword attacked a vocational school in Kuopio.
2024: A 12-year-old shot and killed a classmate of the same age and injured others at a school in Vanda
