Gutenberg's subversive gang environment:

The short version

Police in Hessinge, Gothenburg, struggle against recruitment of young people into criminal gangs.
Gangs lure young people with pizza and money to keep them away from police activities.
Through the “Roller Model”, they recruited 300 gang criminals in order to prevent crime.
Children as young as 11-12 years old are recruited with the help of food and money.

Preventing gang recruitment in Sweden is no easy task, says Daniel Norlander, the local police chief in Hessinge in Gothenburg.

– We had a scary incident, he begins.

In our invited social services, police life and associations “coffee” And activities in Hisinge.

– No guys came. Then the gang a block away invited us for pizza instead, so the guys went there. He was cunning. The police chief says: They knew what we were going to do.

– It is important for us as a society to stop recruitment, as gang crimes can be stopped.

Extensive work

Over the past ten years, the police in Hisinge have worked in an organized manner with social services and schools to monitor gang criminals.

Now they have a complete profile of 300 people who belong to the gangs, according to Norlander.

Daniel Norlander

Director of the Hessingen Police District in Gothenburg

They call the method the “cylindrical model.”

“We keep track of everyone, we know their names, where they live, who their parents are, and we know who their girlfriends are,” he tells VG.

Read also: Police on gangs in Gothenburg: – We have an eye on everyone

Classification of criminals

Local police in Sweden use the model to determine which criminal actors exercise influence in the area and into which category they can be placed.

The Cylindrical Model has four actor categories associated with a specific geographic area, often a residential area.

These groups have strong common ground in the living environment, and cooperate in fighting crime both horizontally (among peers) and vertically (between older and younger). These actors are called A, B, C, and D:

This is the “cylindrical model” according to which the Swedish police operate. Photo: Police

The Cylinder Model was introduced in 2019. Police wrote that there had been a gradual increase in the number of registered cylinder operators in the period from 2021, when the Cylinder Model was deemed sufficiently enforced.

During the years 2019-2023, approximately 16,700 individuals were registered on approximately 37,000 occasions. This means that some individuals return year after year, while others disappear and new ones appear, they write.

Child recruitment

“Unfortunately, some of them are very small,” he says with a sigh.

An example from the Swedish capital Stockholm is a 16-year-old boy suspected of murder Three murders and seven attempted murdersAfter two families and their children were shot within two days last fall.

Aftonbladet writes The boy, now 17, said himself that he received free drugs, money and personal protection from a criminal gang. The newspaper wrote that a 15-year-old young man is suspected of hiring the 17-year-old and giving him the weapon that was used.

Read also: Sounding the alarm about Swedish rap circles: – I don't see any light

Norlander says recruitment can take place from ages 11 to 12.

– You are already social and adopt a criminal lifestyle, says Norlander.

He says he could start by offering children pizza to let them know when the police are coming, or a few thousand pounds to hide a weapon under the bed.

– In this way they are recruited and linked to gangs in a very sinister but organized way. So they are the ones we are fighting all the time, with our partners, to break the socialization of criminal gangs, he says and continues:

– It is open to them to play football instead.

Across borders

Swedish criminal networks are the biggest threats it faces, Head of Intelligence, Prevention and Investigation Yngve Mervoll told the Troms Police District on Wednesday.

– We have seen the close relationships between local actors and Swedish networks. In many investigations, couriers and seizures are linked to large criminal networks, for example Foxtrot and Gotsunda, Mervol said during a press conference.

Read also: Police: Increase in Swedish criminal networks in northern Norway

In February, Kribus published a report assessing the threats posed by criminal networks in Norway. Here, networks are becoming more professional, collaborating across borders, and business models are becoming increasingly complex.

There we see a frightening development in gang crimes and some areas have parallel societies. It is naive to think that this cannot happen in Norway. We also see that Swedish communities want to establish themselves here in the country, Eivind Borg, head of Kripos's investigations department, previously told VG.