Government launches war on crime

Norway’s Labour-centre government has launched a war on crime after what it calls a “brutal” summer marked by stabbings, shootings and gang warfare, much of it drug-related. Recent arrests of the Crown Princess’s own son suggest that the violence and lack of respect for the law extends far beyond the city’s troubled neighbourhoods, but that’s where three government ministers have chosen to launch their own attack, funded by billions of taxpayers’ money.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labor Party likened criminal gangs to “poison against the public interest” as he and Center Party Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum presented leaks from their own 2025 state budget in Oslo’s Mortensrud on Monday. The troubled southern district of the Norwegian capital has long been plagued by social unrest and gangs, but gang-related crime and drug trafficking in particular has spread nationwide.

Juvenile crime has increased dramatically in recent years. The Norwegian State Police Directorate reported earlier this year that the number of crimes committed by children and young people increased by 28 percent from 2022 to 2023. Violent crimes have increased even more, especially among children under the age of 15.

Støre continued his anti-crime crusade at his party’s national board meeting on Tuesday. He recounted how four 12-year-old boys were recently arrested on a Saturday afternoon in the posh Majorstuen district in the heart of Oslo. All four were suspected of four robberies and attempted robberies. Støre also mentioned robberies in Drammen and Lillestrøm, an attack on a gay couple in Oslo’s posh Tjuvholmen, and the arrests of two teenagers in Trøndelag who were suspected of as many as 80 criminal acts in Malvik, Stjørdal and Steinkjer.

Although Norway is still generally regarded as a safe country, With Oslo being one of the safest capitals in the world, Støre claimed, “it does something to us when young people threaten people with knives and then distribute videos of their actions, or when they organize fights or sell drugs to children.” He believes Norway’s crime-ridden summer was both “brutal and ruthless.”

The crime wave reached a fever pitch last month with the arrest of Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby, after he attacked a friend and trashed her apartment in Oslo’s fashionable Frogner district. Høiby himself blamed his actions on a combination of alcohol and cocaine, saying he had struggled with drugs for years. He was arrested and briefly jailed again over the weekend, and police ransacked the mountain cabin where he was staying after he violated a restraining order. Cocaine use has become widespread in Norway in recent years, as rising prosperity has created a market for the addictive white powder.

Støre, a personal friend of the crown couple, did not mention Høiby in his remarks this week, but vowed to crack down on all aspects of Norway’s crime wave, not least the drug trade. He argued that his government sees the crime problem much more broadly than his political rivals on the conservative side of Norway’s political spectrum, through its efforts to prevent crime and recruitment into criminal gangs.

The Labor Center government plans to fund her efforts with an additional NOK 2.8 billion (USD 280 million), of which NOK 2.4 billion is earmarked for the police to cover the costs of increasing staffing and having far more police on the streets. In what is being called the “Gang Package II”, the government effort will also increase funding for prosecutors, the courts, prison staff, child protection services, schools and local governments. The latter are expected to use the extra funding for more preventative measures to keep children away from gang recruiters.

At the same time, Støre stressed at his party meeting that the response to criminal acts “will come faster” and that punishment will be aimed at bringing suspects “to a life without crime”. The police and legal response to crime will be put on a new kind of fast track for young suspects. There will also be a doubling of the capacity of youth detention centres.

Store defended the program, claiming that he would not resort to measures proposed by conservative rivals. He told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) after his speech to the Labour Party’s national board that combating insecurity in society is at the heart of his party’s social democratic principles.

Opposition parties from the Conservative and Progressive parties responded that many of the proposals from the Støre government are a repetition of their own. The Progressive Party also wants to lower the age at which Norwegians can be held liable for crimes, increase prison sentences, double the sentences if gangs are involved, arm the police at all times and set up special closed institutions for young criminal gang members.

Labour has voted against similar proposals in the past, which Støre excused by saying the time has only now come. He claimed his government also emphasises preventive measures rather than reactive ones, particularly in efforts to keep children away from drugs and gangs. Those measures could include deploying youth counsellors instead of police officers to meet teenagers where they tend to hang out, working with families in troubled areas and recruiting young people into after-school sports programmes, all of which would require strong financial commitments over the coming years.

NieuwsinEngels.no/Nina Berglund