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Reepalu ‘pleased’ with Obama envoy talks

Controversial Malmö mayor Ilmar Reepalu said he was ”pleased” with the meeting with US president Barack Obama’s expert on anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal which took place during her visit to the city on Wednesday.

Published: 25 April 2012 16:32 CEST

Reepalu 'pleased' with Obama envoy talks

“I think that we had a good conversation,” he said to local paper Sydsvenskan.

According to Reepalu, Rosenthal is very concerned about the increase in hate crimes that is happening not only in Sweden, but in the rest of Europe.

“She was very clear and said that anti-Semitism isn’t worse than any other racism,” Reepalu told the paper.

According to Reepalu, Rosenthal stressed the difference between anti-Semitism and a warranted criticism of the state of Israel.

“On the other hand it is important not to put the blame on Jews in Malmö or any other place for injustices committed by Israel, “ he told the paper.

Mayor Reepalu has been likened by some observers to British ex-mayor Ken Livingstone for his habit to put his foot in his mouth.

His recent statements in right-leaning magazine NEO that the Jewish community in Malmö had been infiltrated by the Sweden Democrats ruffled a lot of feathers in Sweden and abroad. According to Reepalu, Rosenthal mentioned his gaffe in their conversation.

“It came up and she said that it is very important to watch one’s words and be careful of anything that can be interpreted as anti-Semitic,” Reepalu told Sydsvenskan.

Reepalu nevertheless claimed that comments of his which cause a stir usually do so because of misrepresentation or misinterpretation. But he admitted to the paper that his choice of words has sometimes been rather unfortunate.

Rosenthal’s interest in Reepalu and his public statements, as the top local politician in the area, was also based on a misunderstanding, according to Reepalu.

“She believed that I was the highest authority for the Malmö police force, and that it is my fault that the police aren’t investigating hate crimes or allocating resources to protect the synagogue. And it was very good that we cleared that up,” he said.

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US criminologist lauds Malmö for anti-gang success

Johan Nilsson/TT

In an online seminar with Malmö mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said implementing his Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy had gone extremely smoothly in the city.

“What really stands out about the Malmö experience is contrary to most of the places we work,” he said. “They made their own assessment of their situation on the ground, they looked at the intervention logic, they decided it made sense, and then, in a very rapid, focused and business-like fashion, they figured out how to do the work.”

He said that this contrasted with police and other authorities in most cities who attempt to implement the strategy, who tend to end up “dragging their feet”, “having huge amounts of political infighting”, and coming up with reasons why their city is too different from other cities where the strategy has been a success.

Malmö’s Sluta Skjut (Stop Shooting) pilot scheme was extended to a three-year programme this January, after its launch in 2018 coincided with a reduction in the number of shootings and explosions in the city.

“We think it’s a good medicine for Malmö for breaking the negative trend that we had,” Malmö police chief Stefan Sintéus said, pointing to the fall from 65 shootings in 2017 to 20 in 2020, and in explosions from 62 in 2017 to 17 in 2020.

A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of shootings from 2017 to 2020. Graph: Malmö Police

A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of explosions in the city between 2017 and 2020. Graph: Malmö Police

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In their second evaluation of the programme, published last month, Anna-Karin Ivert, Caroline Mellgren, and Karin Svanberg, three criminologists from Malmö University, reported that violent crime had declined significantly since the program came into force, and said that it was possible that the Sluta Skjut program was partly responsible, although it was difficult to judge exactly to what extent.

The number of shootings had already started to decline before the scheme was launched, and in November 2019, Sweden’s national police launched Operation Rimfrost, a six-month crackdown on gang crime, which saw Malmö police reinforced by officers from across Sweden.

But Kennedy said he had “very little sympathy” for criminologists critical of the police’s decision to launch such a massive operation at the same time as Sluta Skjut, making it near impossible to evaluate the programme.

“Evaluation is there to improve public policy, public policy is not there to provide the basis for for sophisticated evaluation methodology,” he argued.

“When people with jobs to do, feel that they need to do things in the name of public safety, they should follow their professional, legal and moral judgement. Not doing something to save lives, because it’s going to create evaluation issues, I think, is simply privileging social science in a way that it doesn’t deserve.”

US criminologist David Kennedy partaking in the meeting. Photo: Richard Orange

Sluta Skjut has been based around so-called ‘call-ins’, in which known gang members on probation are asked to attend meetings, where law enforcement officials warn them that if shootings and explosions continue, they and the groups around them will be subject to intense focus from police.

At the same time, social workers and other actors in civil society offer help in leaving gang life.

Of the 250-300 young men who have been involved in the project, about 40 have been sent to prison, while 49 have joined Malmö’s ‘defector’ programme, which helps individuals leave gangs.

Kennedy warned not to focus too much on the number of those involved in the scheme who start to work with social services on leaving gang life.

“What we find in in practice is that most of the impact of this approach doesn’t come either because people go to prison or because they take services and leave gang life,” he said.

“Most of the impact comes from people simply putting their guns down and no longer being violent.”

“We think of the options as continuing to be extremely dangerous, or completely turning one’s life around. That’s not realistic in practice. Most of us don’t change that dramatically ever in our lives.”

He stressed the importance of informal social control in his method, reaching those who gang members love and respect, and encouraging them to put pressure on gang members to abstain from gun violence.

“We all care more about our mothers than we care about the police, and it turns out that if you can find the guy that this very high risk, very dangerous person respects – literally, you know, little old ladies will go up to him and get his attention and tell him to behave himself. And he will.”

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