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full screenCamila Salazar Atias, criminologist and senior specialist at Fryshuset. Archive image. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT
Police hope to break gang recruitment by taking criminals’ luxury goods with a new law. It is an important part, but far from the whole solution, believes criminologist Camila Salazar Atias.
– The desire to belong to a context is stronger than many people think, she says.
The police no longer have to prove a concrete crime in order to seize and confiscate items linked to the proceeds of crime. Together with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M), the authority has described the change as crucial to breaking the recruitment of young people into criminal gangs.
– The most important thing is to access the romanticized subculture as well as the most visible assets and status items that attract, but unfortunately I don’t think that will solve the whole problem, says Salazar Atias.
Great attraction
– Another important part that is often underestimated is how strong the driving force is to belong to a context where you don’t feel like a burden but like a resource.
Salazar Atias himself has been surprised by how strong that drive has been in young people who have ended up in the hands of gang criminals.
– I followed up a large criminal gang in the USA where they were quite poor by our standards. But there was still a great attraction among people who stood outside society. They got a community where you supported and were there for each other.
– We know that a young person who does not have that feeling will look for a place where you can get it.
School is important
Therefore, Salazar Atias believes that society must find a counterforce and offer something that competes with the criminal gangs.
– There we already know that the school is important. But we also need to see the financial obstacles that exist for young people to participate in positive contexts that enable job opportunities and provide a legal economy, without forgetting the obstacles we currently set up for the young people who have a dot in the register.