Denmark and Sweden announce joint approach to gang crime

PRAGUE

The justice ministers of Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday announced joint measures to tackle organised gang crime following a series of violent incidents in Denmark allegedly involving Swedish youths, Danish state news outlet DR reported.

The Danish and Swedish Ministers of Justice, Peter Hummelgaard and Gunnar Strommer respectively, announced this at a press conference in Copenhagen.

“We are unfortunately aware that gang violence knows no borders. Our response must therefore be strong and coordinated,” Hummelgaard said.

The ministers confirmed that under the agreement, both neighbouring countries will improve the mechanism for exchanging information to prevent young people from being recruited into criminal gangs.

They also agreed to strengthen cooperation with third countries to extradite gang leaders who are at large, the ministers noted.

The aim would be to extradite more criminals to Denmark and Sweden so that “criminal masterminds can face the consequences of their actions,” Hummelgaard said, but he did not name a specific country for the third-party agreement.

“It is frightening that people can be so cynical as to abuse children and young people to drive them to murder,” said the Danish Minister of Justice.

His Swedish counterpart Strommer said Sweden would take action against “serious violence” and would use Denmark’s anti-gang legislation as inspiration for a “historic” change of course.

“This means three things: cracking down on violence, depriving criminals of their economies and tackling the recruitment of children and young people,” he said.

The Swedish minister noted that it is a “fact” that Sweden has not done enough to combat gang crime in recent years.

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