Martti Lehti

• University of Helsinki

Nordic Homicide in Deep Time draws a unique and detailed picture of developments in human interpersonal violence and presents new findings on rates, patterns, and long-term changes in lethal violence in the Nordics. Conducted by an interdisciplinary team of criminologists and historians, the book analyses homicide and lethal violence in northern Eu...

An extensive body of criminological research has shown that criminal and violent behaviour manifests time patterns in terms of daily, weekly and annual cycles. This is consistent with criminological routine activities theory. Can we generalize these patterns to historical periods? In this article, we draw on a recently created unique dataset, cover...

The article explores the statistical association between annual alcohol consumption and homicide mortality in Finland, Sweden and Norway from the early 19th century to 2013. The results show statistically significant impacts on overall and male homicide mortality in Finland and on male homicide mortality in Sweden. In Norway, we found no significan...

This study provides an overview of homicide clearance in four West European countries: Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Using data from the European Homicide Monitor, employing similar definitions and uniform coding schemes, this study allowed for unique crosscountry comparisons in factors influencing differences in homicide cleara...

Problem. Police statistics are the most comprehensive continuous database on crime in most industrialized countries. They also form an important source for quantitative criminological research. They are produced primarily for administrative use and their definitions are closely connected with national legal systems. Because of this, they comprise o...

This presentation reflects preliminary findings from the European Homicide Monitor in the period 2009-2014 in three European countries: Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It provides a detailed overview of the case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of intimate partner homicide.

Most large scale comparative studies on homicide analyses total victimisation rates. Well-known exceptions include historical data-series from Veli Verkko, which showed that the higher the level of violence, the smaller the share of female victims and perpetrators. Consequently also the increases and decreases in lethal violence touch more male vic...

The article describes the days-of-presence adjusted (DPA) crime rates of different non-resident visitor groups in Finland, and discusses the feasibility of this kind of analysis. The analyses of the article have been based on the published crime statistics and unpublished data of the Border Interview Surveys of Statistics Finland. The data cover th...

After a high-profile homicide case, there is often discussion in the media on whether or not the killing was caused or facilitated by a psychotropic medication. Antidepressants have especially been blamed by non-scientific organizations for a large number of senseless acts of violence, e.g., 13 school shootings in the last decade in the U.S. and Fi...

The term ‘infanticide’ refers to the homicide of a child younger than one year old. In this article, we describe infanticide trends in 28 industrialized countries between 1960 and 2009. The analysis is based on the cause of death data from the WHO Mortality Database and national materials. The purpose is to compare those trends in all these 28 coun...

Tyypillinen suomalainen henkirikos on yksityisasunnossa tehty ryyppyriitatappo. Tätä kuvaa on kansainvälisissä tutkimuksissa pyritty jäsentämään päihdesidonnaisen väkivallan käsitteellisellä jaottelulla psykofarmakologiseen väkivaltaan, systeemiseen väkivaltaan ja taloudellisesti motivoituneeseen väkivaltaan. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on anal...

Data are available on homicide trends and patterns for 235 countries from six continents from 1950 to 2010. Recent rates range from fewer than 0.5 victim per 100,000 population to 80 and regionally from around one in Scandinavia to around 30 in Central America. Countries that share cultural, political, and social traditions usually have similar cri...

The article presents a quantitative look at the European homicide research published in selected main international journals in the field of social science criminology (SSC) since 2000. Building on our previous, mainly narrative work (Kivivuori et al., 2012), we use search string targeting article titles in selected SSC journals. The aim is to capt...

Homicide rates have decreased in Finland since the late 1990s by over 40%. The decrease has been part of a general trend in Western developed nations. This article provides a descriptive single-country case study of the drop by disaggregating and comparing the Finnish homicides during three periods: 1998–2000, 2003–2007 and 2008–2012. The data are...

Immigrants are known to be overrepresented in the crime statistics of Nordic countries. However, the composition of immigrant populations varies across countries both in terms of immigrants’ country of origin as well as their population structure (age and sex). Cross-country comparison of crime rates is always difficult because of differences in le...

Due to differences in definitions, data sources and criminal justice procedures, comparing homicides between countries is not without problems. To overcome these limitations, we have constructed a joint European Homicide Monitor (EHM). So far, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden constitute the basis of the database. In this contribution, we give an...

Although research on business crime victimization has increased in recent years, few studies have explained variation in the crime risk of businesses. Drawing on a nationally representative survey of retail premises (N=1197), this study describes the prevalence and correlates of business crime victimization in Finland, using England and Wales as a...

The chapter deals with homicidal crime in Finland. It is based on existing research literature, the data of the Finnish Homicide Monitoring System (FHMS), and the main statistical data sources. Homicidal crime has been a central topic in modern Finnish criminology and forensic psychiatry since the early-1900s; the existing studies on homicide trend...

Since the 1960s, homicides against children have decreased dramatically in Finland. The article examines this decrease by disaggregating the trend in five child homicide types between 1960-1974 and 2003-2009. There were several factors reducing the motivation and opportunity to commit most child homicide types during the period. Some were results o...

The question as to whether intimate partner homicide (IPH) is committed by average people as opposed to socially disadvantaged persons has both theoretical resonance and practical salience. The gender framework predicts that IPH offenders are socially and individually less disadvantaged than other homicide offenders. The violence framework predicts...

Five important changes can be detected in the homicidal crime of Finland and Sweden. From the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth, concurring with the establishing of the modern centralized state, homicide rates dropped significantly. In the long term, the local variation in Swedish homicide rates decreased, probably because of the rise o...

Due to differences in definitions, data sources and criminal justice procedures, comparing homicides between countries is not without problems. To overcome these limitations, we have constructed a joint European Homicide Monitor (EHM). So far, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden constitute the basis of the database. In this contribution, we give an...

Cross-national studies of homicide are dominated by theories that focus on inequality and other structural factors as the source of variation in the level of lethal violence. As a nation with a comparatively high homicide rate in the presence of a strong welfare state, Finland represents a puzzle to this paradigm. The apparent weakness of the struc...

Trafficking for women for prostitution dominates the discussion of policy responses to human trafficking in Europe. Despite media and political interest, reliable data and scientific research concerning the problem remain scarce. This article synthesizes available research data to provide an overview of the volume and division of prostitution‐relat...

This article examines the social composition of homicide offenders and victims in Finland between 1960 and 2000. While many prior analyses have been based on victim-based cause-of-death statistics or aggregated rates of geographical units, the present data allowed the analysis of offender and victim populations at individual level. Both the rates a...

Current estimates of human trafficking for sexual exploitation underestimate rather than overestimate the volume. They exaggerate the role of trafficking in international prostitution of adults but underestimate trafficking in minors. About 60-80 percent of the crime is domestic, and the bulk of cross-border trafficking is regional. The major flows...

Aims The article examines the links between alcohol consumption, drinking habits and the high homicide rates in Finland today from the point of view of the structure of homicides and the social status of the people involved in them. The Finnish situation is compared with that in the other Nordic countries, especially in Sweden. ■ Methods The links...

Aims The article examines the links between alcohol consumption, drinking habits and the high homicide rates in Finland today from the point of view of the structure of homicides and the social status of the people involved in them. The Finnish situation is compared with that in the other Nordic Countries, especially with Sweden. ■ Methods The lin...

In the early 1960s, 15% of Finnish homicide offenders committed suicide after the crime. In 1998-2000, this ratio was 6%. The downward trend was due to the increase in non-suicidal homicide, as well as to a substantial decrease in the general homicide-suicide rate. Over the time span, the rate of suicidal homicide offenders per 100,000 population w...

While in western Europe and Scandinavia homicide rates reached their all time low during the period of industrialization, in Finland and Estonia they increased considerably. The rapid growth of criminal violence during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s in these two countries seems to have been the result of interaction of several factors,...

Väkivaltarikollisuus ja alkoholi liittyvät läheisesti toisiinsa. Pääosa pahoinpi-telyrikoksiin ja henkirikoksiin syyllistyvistä tekee tekonsa alkoholin vaikutuk-sen alaisena ja rikokset tehdään usein alkoholin nauttimistilanteissa. Seuraa-vassa tarkastellaan alkoholin tai muiden päihteiden vaikutuksen alaisena ollei-den määrää ja osuutta väkivaltar...