Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Danish police ‘stop-and-search zones’ have little effect

Police in both Copenhagen and Aarhus have increasingly turned to so-called ’stop-and-search zones’ in an attempt to crack down on gang violence. But according to police data, not a single gun has been found.

Published: 27 July 2017 19:49 CEST
Danish police ‘stop-and-search zones’ have little effect
Police respond to a reported shooting in Nørrebro on July 15th. Photo: Mathias Øgendal/Scanpix
Copenhagen Police and East Jutland Police established a number of ‘stop-and-search’ ordinances in large areas in the capital and Aarhus in response to a series of shooting and stabbing incidents thought to be tied to gangs. 
 
The ordinances (called visitationszoner in Danish) allow police to stop anyone within a predetermined area and search them for weapons without having probable cause. 
 
Copenhagen Police established a new stop-and-search zone last week that covered areas of Nørrebro, Husum, Brønshøj and Bispebjerg.
 
According to information provided to broadcaster DR, police have searched 143 individuals within the zone since last Thursday but found no weapons. The only result of the ordinance thus far has been five citations for drugs. 
 
On June 25th, East Jutland Police established a large ‘stop-and-search zone’ in western Aarhus in response to increased gang activity associated with the group Loyal to Familia’s expansion from Copenhagen to Denmark’s second-largest city. 
 
Since then, officers have conducted 305 searches but have turned up just three knives and two blunt instruments. Only one person faces charges. 
 
Despite not turning up a single gun in the 448 stops across the two cities, police in both Copenhagen and Aarhus characterised their efforts as successful.
 
“We are satisfied with the effort and we will continue undaunted throughout the period of the stop-and-search ordinance. I obviously hope that the criminality will fall. It is naive to believe that it can be completely removed but that is of course the goals,” Copenhagen Police Vice Inspector Henrik Møller Jakobsen told DR. 
 
In Aarhus, East Jutland Police Inspector Lau Thygesen said that “it is positive that despite everything we have found so few weapons”.
 
“We see it as a sign that the gang members have understood our message and are therefore not carrying weapons around,” Thygesen said. 

CRIME

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

Denmark’s government wants authorities to be able to move children out of families in which parents are gang members and is likely to formalise the measure in parliament.

Published: 9 April 2024 13:38 CEST
Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

The justice spokesperson with senior coalition partner the Social Democrats, Bjørn Brandenborg, told regional media TV2 Fyn that he wants authorities to have the power to remove children from their families in certain circumstances where the parents are gang members.

Brandenborg’s comments came on Monday, after Odense Municipality said it had spent 226 million kroner since 2009 on social services for eight specific families with gang connections.

“There is simply a need for us to give the authorities full backing and power to forcibly remove children early so we break the food chain and the children don’t become part of gang circles,” he said.

The measure will be voted on in parliament “within a few weeks”, he said.

An earlier agreement on anti-gang crime measures, which was announced by the government last November, includes provisions for measures of this nature, Brandenborg later confirmed to newswire Ritzau.

“Information [confirming] that close family members of a child or young person have been convicted for gang crime must be included as a significant and element in the municipality’s assessment” of whether an intervention is justified, the agreement states according to Ritzau.

The relevant part of November’s political agreement is expected to be voted on in parliament this month.

READ ALSO: Denmark cracks down on gang crime with extensive new agreement

Last year, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told political media Altinget that family relations to a gang member could be a parameter used by authorities when assessing whether a child should be forcibly removed from parents.

In the May 2023 interview, Hummelgaard called the measure a “hard and far-reaching measure”.

SHOW COMMENTS