Finland Sees Assault Reports Climb More Than 10%, Putting 2026 on Track for a Record

Finnish police received more than 36,000 reports of suspected assaults between January and September 2026, an increase of more than 10% on the same period in 2025, according to data from Statistics Finland cited by YLE News. A Possible New Record Since the start of the year, police have received an average of about 4,000 assault reports a month. Kimmo Haapakangas, a senior statistician at Statistics Finland, said that at this pace the total number of reported assaults could set a new record in the country’s crime statistics by the end of the year. The current record was set in 2025, when police received 44,600 assault reports. Increase in Every Region Reports of suspected assaults rose in all of Finland’s regional police departments. The sharpest trend was in Western and Eastern Uusimaa, where the figures have doubled compared with 2015 levels. Homicides Hold Steady In the first nine months of 2026, the statistics also recorded 56 suspected homicides, the same number as in January to September 2025. Attempted murders changed little, at 306 in 2026 against 305 a year earlier.