More and more children are being recruited by the growing gang crime around the country. One who testifies to the development is intervention police officer Maja Skepp in Norrköping. Since the summer, she has written emotional posts on the Police Authority’s social media about the child soldiers who terrorize Sweden with shootings and bombings. According to Maja Skepp, not many have realized how serious the situation ‘we have ended up in’ is. But it is not harsher penalties she is now calling for, but a society that truly understands the problem with ‘resigned children’.
On Friday, National Police Chief Petra Lundh and Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer announced that gang crime in Sweden, according to the police’s current situation report, now encompasses over 67,000 people. Of these, around 17,500 are estimated to be actively involved in gang crime, while an additional 50,000 have some form of connection to the criminal networks.
READ ALSO: Over 67,000 people linked to gang crime in Sweden – government: ‘Serious situation’
Last summer, police constable Maja Skepp, together with colleagues at the Norrköping police, posted a message on social media to provide perspective and humanize the gang criminals who terrorize Sweden – by murdering rivals, shooting innocent people in so-called mistaken shootings, peppering facades and doors of multi-family houses and villas, or by detonating bombs and throwing grenades at them.
READ ALSO: Police’s emotional statement about gangs: ‘These are children we are talking about’
Maja and colleagues in the intervention activities in Norrköping then stated that these gangsters are actually ‘children’. Furthermore, that they are children with ‘trembling little voices that have barely reached puberty’ and that they cannot eat with cutlery.
In a new statement on state television, Maja Skepp, who has worked as an intervention police officer for seven years, wants to tell that Swedes have not understood how serious the situation ‘we have ended up in’ is.
– I don’t think many have understood how serious the situation we have ended up in is, says Skepp to SVT.
According to Maja, the child soldiers in Sweden are ‘like any other young people’. She believes that this is one of the reasons why ‘one is generally quite naive about this development’.
The children and young people who commit serious violent crimes, according to Maja Skepp, look just like any other young people, which she believes is one of the reasons why many are quite naive about the development. She emphasizes that one often does not see them for the capacity they actually can have.
The increasing recruitment of children into gangs is often due to promises of money, status, and a sense of community. But harsher penalties are not needed to deter child soldiers, instead, we should see ‘their resignation’ and show that there is ‘an alternative’.
– As a society, we need to understand this problem and act, we must do something to reverse this development, she says.
“We have not ended up in this situation”
One who has reacted to Maja Skepp’s statement is the debater Jens Ganman, who wants to emphasize that we have not ‘ended up’ in this situation by chance, but that there are responsible authorities who have contributed to creating the development we see in Sweden.
