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Malmö’s mouse restaurateurs take to open road

A photo of a mysterious mouse wagon has been posted by the Malmö street art group Anonymouse. What can it mean?

Published: 7 January 2017 10:49 CET
Malmö's mouse restaurateurs take to open road
The wagon parked on a so-far unidentified street. Photo: Anonymouse|Instagram
Are Malmö’s mouse restaurateurs launching a trendy food wagon? Or have they decided to forgo the city for a life on the road? 
 
A week after their restaurant Il Topolino and the nextdoor upmarket nut boutique Noix de Vie were vandalised in their location on a busy Malmö street, the guerrilla art troupe Anonymouse have given a glimpse of their next project, posting a photo of a miniature wagon on their Instagram account. 
 
 
 
“Sneak peak of one of the upcoming… things,” the group write. “We don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone so we're trying to keep things minimal at this moment. But we're working on it! (it's not “out” yet, but you will be able to see it, along with the others later this spring.)”
 
The wagon is lit by an electric lamp, and has large windows on one side. 
 
The miniature, mouse-sized shop and restaurant quickly gained international attention after appeared on a busy street in southern city Malmö in early December, with locals posting hundreds of snaps posted on social media. 
 
Created by artists known only as 'Anonymouse', the work soon took on a life of its own as Malmö residents started adding new details to it, including cheese, Christmas gifts and its own bus stop.
 
On New Year’s Eve, the local Sydsvenskan newspaper reported that the restaurant and shop had been damaged by vandals. 
 
“Since we do not know what happened, we have to assume that it is a gas leak from the kitchen that caused the damage,” the newspaper quoted Anonymouse as commenting in an e-mail. “It is just unfortunate that Noix de Vie which does not have a kitchen has also been damaged. But a representative from Il Topolino says that they really will review their procedures.” 
 
By around 9.45pm on New Year’s Eve, the restaurant had been moved from its location. 
 
Here is the Il Topolino restaurant when it opened in December. 
 
 

ENGLISH BELOW. Invigningen av restaurangen Il Topolino möttes av ett något större tryck än beräknat. Det var kul men lämnade ett visst slitage på lokalerna, så under kvällen valde vi att hålla stängt för lättare renovering. (det kan ha funnits en incident med en kock och dåligt dragna ledningar). Men nu är vi åter på plats igen och välkomnar lagom till frukosten. ###### The grand opening of Il topolino was met with a slightly larger interest than anticipated. Its been good fun by also resulted in a bit of a wear on the inventory, so this afternoon we were forced to shut down temporarely (there might have been an incident with a chef and some loose wiring). Anyways, we're back again, just in time for breakfast! Cheese out! #anonymouse

A photo posted by AnonyMouse (@anonymouse_mmx) on Dec 11, 2016 at 9:27pm PST

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SHOOTINGS

US criminologist lauds Malmö for anti-gang success

The US criminologist behind the anti-gang strategy designed to reduce the number of shootings and explosions in Malmö has credited the city and its police for the "utterly pragmatic, very professional, very focused" way they have put his ideas into practice.

Published: 8 March 2021 16:12 CET
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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