Debate, Inlandet police district | The development of crime is out of control

Our county is experiencing an alarming increase in youth and gang crime, while at the same time there are fewer police and fewer resources to solve everyday crime. And it will probably only get worse.

Juvenile crime is by no means a new phenomenon. However, today’s situation is still completely different from just a few years ago. We would claim that youth crime is at an extraordinary level. The crime rate is significantly higher, the rawness and brutality of threats and violence are increasing, the drugs being traded are now more dangerous as there are a lot of synthetic drugs in circulation, and heavy foreign criminal networks have established themselves in our neighbourhoods.

The statistics don’t lie. From 2019 to 2023 alone, violent offenses where the suspect, accused or convicted person is between the ages of 10 and 17 have increased by as much as 78 per cent. It is particularly worrying that the very youngest children are increasingly becoming criminals. In the 10-14 age group, we see an increase in cases settled by prosecution of 48 per cent, from 2019 to 2023.

It should be said that this development is not unique to the interior. Unfortunately, we see the same negative trends throughout the country. What is perhaps unique to us is that the Innlandet police district is the police district in Norway that is currently facing the most precarious resource squeeze.

Since Emilie Enger Mehl (Sp) became Minister of Justice, she has eliminated 79 police positions (man-years) in the Innlandet police district, which corresponds to a reduction of operational police officers of 11 per cent. In addition to this, we have almost experienced a wave of murders, where nine people have been killed in the district. These cases naturally require the highest priority and dedication, which the Inland Police District is not equipped for.

Why the Minister of Justice chooses to starve the police at a time when crime is increasing is difficult to understand. But, when police chief Johan Brekke sounds the alarm about capacity problems in the investigation of other serious cases, due to the resource situation, action must be taken quickly!

As a direct consequence of Justice Minister Mehl’s priorities, we risk that cases such as rape cases and violence in close relationships are not investigated and closed. Serious cases, with known perpetrators, are shelved because the resources do not exist to investigate. Women who are raped, and terrorized physically and psychologically by their partners, now risk not getting help from the police. So far this year, the police in Innlandet have dismissed over 400 cases due to a lack of capacity.

FrP has for several decades warned against the developments we are now experiencing. The increase in youth and gang crime has a clear connection with an unjustifiable immigration policy and a failed integration policy.

Unfortunately, this is a taboo topic to talk about openly and honestly. But society must recognize what are the actual drivers of the negative development, if politicians are to be able to solve the problem. So if one wants to fight the increasing crime through prevention, a strong reduction in non-Western immigration is the most effective method of stopping crime before it is committed.

In the Storting, the FrP has put forward a number of proposals that would have strengthened the police’s ability to investigate gang crime and employed the 400 fully trained police officers that Minister of Justice Mehl refuses to allocate money to hire. She thinks it is more important to use the government’s scarce resources to establish police stations in Engerdal and Sør-Odal. If the police professionals themselves had been allowed to choose where these resources should go, this would never have happened. But Mehl didn’t listen to the professionals.

Perhaps it would have been more socially beneficial to put these resources towards the “cloud station environment” at Gjøvik? There, it has gone so far that parents refuse their children to drive the bus because of the insecurity created by the environment around the station.

The inland idyll is about to disappear. The criminals are experiencing good times since the police less and less often have the resources to check their cards. Less serious everyday crime, often involving a known perpetrator, is dropped due to poor capacity. Not least, heavy organized criminal circles from abroad have established themselves.

This is a development we cannot stand idly by and watch unfold. This is a development that no law-abiding person should accept to be allowed to continue. But, unfortunately, it is a development the government finds acceptable. Because they do very little to remedy the situation.