The city of Stockholm has developed a new programme to combat the rise of gang violence by challenging “male gender roles” among young offenders.
The programme, which was developed by Liberal party politician Jan Jönsson, is modelled on a similar programme in the notorious no-go suburb of Rinkeby and will see increased cooperation between social services and police, Mitt i reports.
“The social service will ask the police to investigate people under the age of 15 where there is a suspicion that people have committed serious crimes. In principle, this is not done today and we want to change that,” Jönsson said.
He added that he wanted to see the social services enacting more coercive measures against young offenders and provide more information to police who he said are interested in information on young people at risk of involvement in gang activity.
Jönsson said the programme will also challenge male gender roles saying: “It is actually the case that the majority of the crimes committed are boys and young men. We want to discuss gender norms early, how to be like a boy and impulse control.”
“What we can see in violent groups is that they constantly trigger each other with thoughts like ‘never back down’ and ‘be a real man’. It is possible to work on these issues and achieve very positive effects,” he added.
The programme is not the first time Stockholm has attempted to use gender politics to solve issues in so-called “vulnerable areas”.
In 2017, the local government in the no-go suburb of Husby proposed using “feminist urban planning” to combat the problem of women feeling insecure and unsafe in the area.
Stockholm has also used gender politics for ploughing snow, which led to disastrous results as the “gender-equal” policy brought traffic to a standstill since priority was given to removing snow and ice from pavements and cycle lanes rather than main roads.
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