208 were taken care of by a local officer, nimismies {länsman), who had acted as the Crown’s representative in the community* fromthe Middle Ages until 1891, when offices of local country constables, funded by the Crown, were founded. The transformation of the social structure that occurred in the Finnish countryside in the latter half of the nineteenth century is clearly reflected in the development of the police force as well. Because the expanding trade and industries demanded a more efficient police force, the committee in charge of the police reformin the countryside thought it necessary to increase the effectiveness of the police force.^ The development of criminal investigation coincides, however, poorly with the transformation of evidentiary theories. For Germany, it seems clear enough that by the time the crucial changes in the methods of criminal invest!- gation — the development of natural sciences and the founding of a central police force - took place at the end of the century, the shift from the legal to the free theory of evidence was already a thing of the past, as the major scientific discussions and legislative changes had been concluded by the 1850s.^ In regard to Finland, the situation is comparable. As I have shown above, the crucial change in the evidentiary theories occurred in Finland in the 1860s. At that time the techniques and organization of criminalistics had made practically no progress in Finland. The empirical material supports this conclusion (see Chapters 12—13): during the century under consideration, surprisingly little progress is seen to have taken place when court records are inspected fromthe criminalistic point of v'iew, and practically no modern criminalistic devices, such as the taking of fingerprints, appear. During the century, criminal inspection relies almost solely on the hearing of witnesses, conducted by the länsman and assisted at times by nämndemän, lay members of the court.^ It is seems clear enough that the adoption of the free evaluation of evidence cannot be attributed to an availability of better quality evidence. The relation between the law of proof and the development of criminalistic methods seems to be rather the opposite. Although no direct relation existed between the two developments, the transformation of the law of proof preceded modern criminalistics. In a system dominated by the statutory rules of proof, obviously no place was reserv’ed for the kind of evidence that modern criminalistics was able to produce. For modern criminalistic methods to flourish, free evaluation of evidence was necessary. The nimismies was mainly in charge of the practical organization of court proceedings and transportations of civil servants when they traveled around the country. Until the end of the 1500, however, the nimismies was considered to act more as a representative of the locality than of the Crown. He was, until the seventeenth century, elected by the local people. Ylikangas 1988 pp.177-179. ^ Hietaniemi 1995 pp. 15-21. ^ Grois - Geerds 1977 p. 52. ^ In homicide cases, however, an autopsy was alwavs conducted.
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