On Wednesday, Statistics Norway (SSB) presented statistics on investigated offenses in 2020.
It is not new that police reports are dismissed on the basis of a lack of case handling capacity.
But in the pandemic year, the increase was very noticeable. At that time, almost 18,600 offenses were committed in this way. That is 44 percent more than in 2019, and more than a doubling since 2016.
– Was automatically discarded
Anders Werner recently reported a case that the police dropped. The reason why they dropped the case was a lack of capacity.
warns Varden mentioned the case first.
The bicycle for Anders Werner’s son was stolen from Kjølnes ungdomsskole in Porsgrunn. His bike disappeared when he was at school last Friday. In broad daylight.
Werner contacted the school to ask if the school area was monitored. They confirmed that they had surveillance cameras.
Werner also reported the case to the police via the internet. The minute after the message that the message had been received, the e-mail came that the case had been dropped due to lack of capacity.
– I think the case was automatically dropped. These were two system-generated letters as I understand it. For me, this is predetermined. That all bicycle theft is directly eliminated, Werner claims.
– It means that people did not bother to spend time and resources on this, but for me it was more important that a young person with saved money has spent their money on a bicycle. I thought maybe it would make a difference, he says.
The leader of the prosecution section in the South-East Police District, Kjell Johan Abrahamsen, says that there is no automaticity in a bicycle theft being dropped, but is honest that it is not among the most prioritized cases.
Photo: Philip Hofgaard / NRK
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Rejects automatic shutdown
The leader of the prosecution section in the South-East Police District, Kjell Johan Abrahamsen, denies to NRK that bicycle theft or any other cases are automatically dismissed.
– It can take a short time from we receive a message until we put it away, but there is never an automatic in it. There is always a prosecuting lawyer who looks at them and makes a decision. We do not have machines that put away a certain type of case, he says.
Abrahamsen further says that the police do not have the resources to reach everywhere, and must therefore prioritize cases.
– We are concerned with prioritizing in such a way that we have enough capacity to deal with a little more serious crime that is very resource-intensive. This means that we can sometimes not prioritize some less serious crime, he says.
He understands Anders’ frustration and says that the police are very busy and dependent on the trust of people. That is why he says it will never be automatic for the police to drop a certain type of case.
– This is something we take seriously. We do not automatically put away all bicycle theft, for example, but we must do it sometime.
Southern Norwegian phenomenon
Reid Jone Stene works with crime statistics at Statistics Norway.
He says the cases that are dismissed with the foundation in lack of capacity, are often characterized as less serious offenses.
– And what is peculiar to a basis in the lack of case handling capacity, is that one then does not comment on the content of the report and possibly the possibility of further criminal prosecution, he says.
To justify that the case is dismissed with a lack of capacity is a southern Norwegian phenomenon.
In the five northernmost police districts, almost no cases are dismissed with this foundation. In the seven southernmost districts, the trend is increasing. Oslo puts away the vast majority of cases with this foundation.
NRK has been in contact with the Attorney General in connection with this case. They say that they were first made aware of Statistics Norway’s material via the media on Wednesday, and that they can not comment on the matter at the present time.
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