Around a hundred minors among juvenile offenders in Espoo – parents suspected of supporting crimes
Groups of minors in Espoo commit robberies and other crimes in the vicinity of shopping centres and transport stations. Police suspect that some parents support their children's criminal activity.
Around a hundred minors among juvenile offenders in Espoo – police suspect some parents' involvement
Groups consisting of minors commit robberies, drug dealing and assaults in Espoo, often targeting other young people. Yle.fi reported that criminality has been most visible in the vicinity of shopping centres and transport stations.
Hannu Väänänen, commissioner of the Western Uusimaa police, told Yle that groups engaged in offences comprise approximately a hundred minors in total. This is not a single cohesive group. According to Väänänen, young people with an immigrant background are overrepresented, but perpetrators are also found amongst ethnic Finns.
The types of crimes vary: sometimes drugs and money are taken from drug dealers, sometimes counterfeit merchandise sales are exploited. Väänänen describes the range of the phenomenon:
– Sometimes a bottle of lemonade and a packet of crisps are robbed.
During this year, police have formed a few suspicions that parents may support their own child's criminal activity for financial gain.
– I believe the family would have had broad-ranging problems in such cases. It does not happen overnight that parents begin to support their child's criminal life, Väänänen says.
He assesses that deprivation and problems with parenting may be behind it. For some families, their child's criminality comes as a complete surprise.
According to Väänänen, in 70–80 per cent of cases a serious crime cycle involving a minor has been broken through sufficiently close cooperation between police, child protection services and youth work. Sometimes criminality is only stopped when the young person turns 15 and can be taken into investigative custody.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, the Western Uusimaa police received significantly fewer reports of robberies committed by minors in 2025. Väänänen assesses that the situation is currently in a lull – although the impact of the summer break remains uncertain.
Tero Luukkonen, head of Espoo's youth services, also confirmed to Yle by email that the city is not currently experiencing a broad juvenile street crime phenomenon.
– We are aware of a small group of young people who show symptoms in the manner described in the Helsingin Sanomat article, Luukkonen states.
According to him, youth work cooperates well with various authorities and the situation is currently calm. However, the phenomenon is not new: juvenile offending has been observed in Espoo in waves for years.
– When people grow up, such foolishness usually stops. Unfortunately, however, new groups always emerge when the generation changes, Väänänen states.
Source: Google News FI — Crime (fi)