Policing & Police Reform in the Nordic Countries

Summary

The panel compared policing and police reform in the Nordic countries with the United States, emphasizing that policing reflects broader social relations, inequality, citizenship, and trust in government. The speakers cautioned against treating the Nordic countries as a single model while identifying several shared features.

Trust and public service

Panelists described high levels of public trust in Nordic police, especially in Finland and Iceland. They linked trust to a service-oriented approach, legality, respectful conduct, and accountability built over time—not to public-relations campaigns. Iceland’s police were also described as playing a prominent role in the COVID-19 response, aided by public confidence.

Accountability and police organization

Finland’s police law requires respect for fundamental rights, proportionality, minimum intervention, and the use of powers only for their lawful purposes. Finnish firearms incidents are investigated by a prosecutor, even when nobody dies.

Denmark and Finland have national police forces, unlike the decentralized U.S. system; Danish police are appointed rather than elected. Denmark’s complaint-review arrangements have been repeatedly revised, but complaints persist that officers are not held accountable. A Danish panelist also noted that existing oversight tends to focus more on individual officers than on structural decisions within police organizations.

In Iceland, an external body began collecting data on complaints in 2017, but it does not investigate or resolve them. The police union was described as influential.

De-escalation, force, and training

Speakers said Nordic policing generally places greater emphasis on de-escalation and uses force less often than U.S. policing. Finnish law requires officers to take a person’s health and other circumstances into account, and officers are expected to understand how mental illness or drug use may affect behavior. Nordic police also work with social and health services.

Iceland was presented as a distinctive case: ordinary police do not carry firearms, and officers receive two years of university-level education covering subjects such as criminology, psychology, social work, and sociology. Finland’s police education includes a three-year bachelor’s degree. The panel suggested that education and cooperation with other services are relevant to calls in the U.S. to redirect some police responsibilities and funding.

Community ties

Iceland’s small, closely connected society can shape responses to people in distress: residents may contact a person’s family rather than call the police.

Lars Holmberg described recurring shifts in Nordic policy between strengthening local community policing and centralizing police operations. He argued that the value of community policing is often recognized but difficult to sustain consistently over time.

Racial and ethnic profiling

Panelists stressed that evidence is limited and that more research is needed. In Denmark, research indicates some differences in how ethnic minorities experience the criminal justice system, but the extent and causes—including structural bias—remain unclear.

Icelandic police statements about refugees and immigrants have raised concerns, while available surveys do not establish whether immigrants’ lower trust reflects policing in Iceland or experiences in their countries of origin. In Finland, officers’ use of descriptions such as clothing, age, and ethnicity may be based on witness reports, yet people who are stopped may experience the practice as profiling.

The panel called for research that examines both police explanations and the experiences of affected communities.

Comparisons and cautions

Panelists warned against idealizing Nordic policing simply because it differs from U.S. policing. Iceland’s discussion often centers on how different it is from the U.S., which can obscure local problems. One example raised was concern that police funding had not kept pace with population growth and tourism.

The discussion also noted the pressures border duties can place on police resources. In Denmark, renewed border checks have required substantial police staffing, while Finland coordinates with a separate border guard authority.

Conclusion

The panel concluded that high trust, extensive education, legal safeguards, and cooperation with other public services are important features of Nordic policing. However, gaps in accountability, data, and research—particularly around structural bias and profiling—remain.

Presenters and contributors

• Ed Gallagher — President of the American Scandinavian Foundation; opening and closing remarks
• Vanessa Barker — Moderator; ASF Fellow and Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University
• Kimmo Himberg — Rector of Finland’s Police University College
• Lars Holmberg — Associate Professor of Criminology, University of Copenhagen
• Margrét Valdimarsdóttir — Assistant Professor of Police Science, University of Akureyri
• Kyle Reinhardt — ASF Manager of Cultural Programming and producer of the panel