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Leaving gangs is hard process: Copenhagen exit programme

A representative of a programme run by Copenhagen Municipality for people who want to leave a life of crime has commented after the fatal shooting of a former gang leader.

Published: 22 November 2018 17:56 CET
Leaving gangs is hard process: Copenhagen exit programme
Tributes to reformed gang leader Nedim Yasar in Copenhagen on Thursday November 22nd, three days after he was fatally shot. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

Nedim Yasar, a 31-year-old former gang member who worked as a radio show host and mentor for young people, was killed this week.

The potential effect of Yasar’s death on others who want to leave gangs is difficult to predict, according to Dea Seidenfaden, who leads the municipality’s Unit for Preventative Response against Crime (Enheden for kriminalpræventive indsatser).

“We don’t expect it to have a great impact in a general sense,” Seidenfaden told Ritzau via a written comment.

“Of course, it will provoke some thought amongst those who are going through exit processes and subsequently wish to be open about their stories, for example in the press,” she added.

“It’s impossible to say whether this will frighten people away from going through exit,” Seidenfaden said.

Yasar, who left a Copenhagen-based criminal gang in 2012, worked on Radio24syv’s programme ‘Politiradio’ and as a mentor for young people and was about to release his memoir ‘Rødder’ (Roots), written in collaboration with journalist and author Marie Louise Toksvig.

He was shot around 7:30pm on Monday evening on the Hejrevej road in the Nordvest neighbourhood of Copenhagen after leaving a launch event for the book, which was published on Tuesday – the day Yasar’s death from his injuries was confirmed by police.

READ ALSO: Reformed gang member shot dead in Copenhagen after book launch

A number of Danish politicians reacted angrily to the news that Yasar had been killed, particularly given its connection to his decision to quit organised crime.

“Incomprehensible that a man who had left a life of crime behind him became a victim of it. Nedim had found another way and was passionate about getting others to follow him. May he be successful, in spite of his untimely death. RIP,” Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) leader Morten Østergaard wrote on Twitter.

Seidenfaden said that it was difficult to make general statements about the difficulty or risk associated with leaving a gang.

“Leaving a gang is not easy, it is a long and hard process in which many significant choices must be made before, during and after an exit,” she told Ritzau.

“It is a sometimes-risky process which must be managed by individual case. So you cannot say anything general about the risk of reprisals,” she wrote. 

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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