Debate post This is a debate entry, written by an external contributor. The post expresses the writer’s views.
On Monday, Nordlys wrote in a editorial that youth crime is increasing throughout the country, and that youth crime is not just an Oslo phenomenon, but a challenge for the entire country.
The numbers Nordlys refers to, Troms police district can confirm. This was, among other things, the subject of a separate report we published in the autumn. The incidents do not amount to a large number on a national basis, but the police have observed an increase in, for example, the number of incidents involving the use of threats with knives among children and young people in Tromsø. In addition, we register that there are many repeat offenders in youth crime.
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Not just an Oslo phenomenon
Our biggest concern is that young people who commit repeated criminal acts in Troms are vulnerable to building relationships with criminal networks. In the police, criminal networks are a collective term for environments, gangs, groupings, or sets of individuals who are connected through crime. We have seen that this has already happened in Troms, and that relationships are emerging with criminal networks from Eastern Norway and in Sweden.
These criminal networks have a completely different view of violence and threats than what we are used to. It is rougher and more brutal. In Troms, drug crime is the primary activity of these actors, while we know that they also operate in relation to a number of other types of crime. In Troms there is a large market for drugs, and currently a lower level of conflict compared to other criminal networks.
At the end of April Troms police district brought together all municipalities in Troms to share, among other things, this concern about youth crime and criminal networks. The question we as a society must ask ourselves is; How can we prevent better together, so that fewer people are recruited into these networks?
The consequences of allowing the development to continue are serious, for many it could mean a longer run in a criminal life path. As a society, we must work to counteract it. And the answer is a long way off, precisely what Nordlys describes, it is necessary to make an early effort aimed at the youngest in order to tackle youth crime.
As police, we have a responsibility in this, a responsibility that we take very seriously, but measures and efforts are also necessary long before the police are involved in these cases. Measures and resources must be prioritized at different levels and in different bodies, in schools, in health, in child protection, in the municipality and with us in the police. There is a need for services for the young people, there is a need for committed adults who follow up and see the individual young people, and resources for preventive follow-up of those who are moving towards the edge.
In a demanding time for both the police and municipalities, it is more important than ever that different agencies work together and try to find new forms of joint cooperation.
It is also important to emphasize that we need to talk more with the young people themselves, not only about them – and we in the police must do more of that in the future.
