A model T Ford, road barriers an a petition for a machine gun

The Police Force's response to spirits smuggling between 1923 and 1932 in the Police Districts of Merikarvia and Siikainen

Kirjoittajat

• Anni Ruohomäki

Abstrakti

A Model T Ford, Road Barriers and a Petition for a Machine Gun. The Police Force´s Response to the Spirits Smuggling in 1923–1932 in the Police District of Merikarvia and SiikainenThis article examines how the smuggling of spirits affected the development of the country police force´s equipment in the years 1923–1932. Spirits smuggling grew into a huge problem in Finland in 1919-1932 due to prohibition. These research notes focus on one particular area, a coastal municipality called Merikarvia, which is located in the west coast of the country, in the Satakunta region. In 1923, the police district of Merikarvia consisted of the municipalities of Merikarvia and Siikainen. The technical equipment and the means of transportation of the police force in the Finnish country side were very modest in the 1910s and at the beginning of the 1920s. When prohibition came into force in 1919, the police force faced a significant challenge: large scale spirits smuggling. People didn´t respect prohibition because it was not in line with their sense of justice. In the summer of 1923, the smugglers started to use large smuggling ships that could carry up to 100,000 litres of spirits plus smaller amounts of finer alcohol such as cognac, liquor and whisky. The ships also travelled to the Gulf of Bothnia and the spirits were mostly exported from Germany and Estonia.Without prohibition, the police of Merikarvia would probably not have been allocated a car even as early as 1926. The fight against the smugglers affected the means of transportation of the country police force and, as a result of prohibition, the police also received new technical equipment such as binoculars, steel cables and spike strips.