DeKalb, IL – Despite being ranked the happiest country in the world for the sixth year in a row, there is still homelessness and crime in Finland. However, unlike the United States, Finland has made remarkable progress in reducing homelessness over the last two decades.

As a 2023-2024 American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellow, NIU Sociology Professor Fred Markowitz will travel to Finland this fall to investigate the relationships between mental health problems, homelessness and crime.

Markowitz says there are many lessons to be learned from the Scandinavian country’s success and remaining challenges. In particular, he is interested in how homelessness is related to crime at both the individual and community levels.

Markowitz, who was previously a Fulbright Scholar, will build on his prior work on mental illness, treatment services and crime in both the United States and Finland. He is returning to Finland to conduct the research at the invitation of the University of Helsinki’s Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, one of the world’s leading universities.

“Because of its universal healthcare system and national registry data, Finland provides unique opportunities to examine social problems in ways that are simply not possible in the U.S.,” Markowitz says.

“For example, in Finland there are consistent indicators of how many persons in each municipality use various mental health services. In the U.S., mental health services are highly fragmented, and delivered by an array of private, public, for-profit and nonprofit organizations with funding from a variety of private insurers and federal, state and county governments. As a result, standardized data that allows for comparisons across communities is not available.”

Markowitz points out that, although Finland does not have the high levels of urban disorder and crime that exist in the United States, there is still substantial overlap between mental health problems and crime in Finland. He hopes to better understand where to target resources and intervention strategies to reduce the number of persons with mental illnesses who end up homeless and in prison, and to facilitate their recovery.

While most persons with a mental illness are not dangerous, studies have shown the risk of violence and criminal behavior is elevated among persons with certain mental illnesses. They are also more likely to be the victims of crime.

While in Finland, Markowitz will work with colleagues at the University of Helsinki to access data that, due to strict EU security regulations, can only be examined there. At the same time, he will be able to meet with mental health and housing service providers and criminal justice authorities to gain ground-level insight into how systems operate.

Markowitz will also deliver guest lectures and continue his participation in the Doctoral Seminar for Criminology at the University of Helsinki.  In 2021, he was a keynote speaker at the Finnish Criminological Association.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to not only build international collaborative ties between NIU and Finland, but to also take valuable substantive lessons back to NIU in order to provide a more global perspective to my courses in criminology and mental illness,” Markowitz says.

The American-Scandinavian Foundation was founded in 1910 and is dedicated to promoting international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

Media Contact: Tom Parisi

About NIU

Northern Illinois University is a student-centered, nationally recognized public research university, with expertise that benefits its region and spans the globe in a wide variety of fields, including the sciences, humanities, arts, business, engineering, education, health and law. Through its main campus in DeKalb, Illinois, and education centers for students and working professionals in Chicago, Naperville, Oregon and Rockford, NIU offers more than 100 areas of study while serving a diverse and international student body.