Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced this week that her government would crack down on crimes committed by young non-western migrant men.
Prime Minister Frederiksen spoke during the opening of the Danish parliamentary year on Tuesday, saying: “One in five young men from non-Western backgrounds who were born in 1997 had breached the penal code before the age of 21. One in five.”
“It’s nothing new, and that’s the problem: it’s been going on for too many years. Girls are called derogatory things because they are Danish. Or girls are subjected to social control because they have become too Danish. A sausage cart in Brønshøj is attacked with firecrackers because it sells pork,” she added, Nyheter Idag reports.
The Danish leader went on to state that police need to crack down on crime in vulnerable no-go areas, where she claimed one per cent of the population commits around half of the crime.
Frederiksen proposed banning criminals from living in certain areas for a limited time. Those who violate the bans would be fined up to 10,000 Danish Kronor (£1,224/$1,581) for the first offence, and that police could start confiscating luxury goods such as mobile phones and watches, while a second offence would see a 30-day prison sentence.
“Today, status symbols are used to recruit younger brothers. The pattern must be broken. We’d rather give the little brother a part-time job than a criminal big brother to look up to,” Frederiksen said.
Gang members and young criminals could also be banned from nightclubs and bars for up to two years, Frederiksen said. “Because in Denmark you need to be safe everywhere – whether it is a disco, a residential area, or a train station,” she added.
Migrant crime remains a major problem in Denmark with a report released earlier this year claiming that half of the young men from Somalia, Lebanon, and Morrocco had been convicted of a crime before the age of 30, with the rate increasing to 62 per cent for Somalians in particular.
Former Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Inger Støjberg wrote in August that mass migration had harmed Denmark more than helped, saying: “There is a marked over-representation of immigrants or descendants from non-Western countries in Danish prisons.”
“Immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries are overall overrepresented by 255 per cent relative to their actual share of the population in Denmark,” she said.
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