Young girls are committing more and more robberies in Sweden. They excel with more violence, threats and humiliation of the victims.
In 2019, 2,489 robberies were reported against victims under the age of 18 in Sweden. There are more than twice as many as in the years 2013 – 16. The figures appear in a report released Wednesday.
Juvenile delinquency is not an unknown phenomenon in Sweden. But the sharp increase has attracted attention and worries the researchers behind the report.
– We have seen an increase in the number of robberies before. But that it is so big, and that it happens all over the country, is startling, says Sara Jonsson, one of the researchers from BRÅ, Sweden’s crime prevention council.
This is because while most robberies are committed in the big cities, the increase is now greatest in the countryside. Outside the big cities, the number of robberies continued to increase even during the pandemic.
The girls most brutal
Most of the perpetrators of juvenile robbery are boys between the ages of 15 and 17 with a foreign background, living in socially disadvantaged areas.
But even though the boys dominate, the girls have thrown themselves into the wave of robberies: The proportion of girls who commit robberies has doubled from four to eight percent from 2015 to 2019. The increase is particularly clear in the Stockholm region and is surprising in more ways than one:
The robberies where at least one girl is involved, stand out in part.
- The girls are often under 15 years old and the victim and perpetrator know each other.
- The girl robberies are characterized by threats, violence and pure humiliation of the victim.
Jonsson believes there may be several reasons for the girls’ behavior. Among other things, that the motive for the robbery is an underlying conflict with the victim.
– It can be about revenge for rumors and bullying, where the robbery becomes part of the harassment, she says.
–Shall humiliate the victim
For the first time, researchers have looked at the occurrence of use of force and humiliation in youth robbery. They just found that robbery is deliberately used to harm and humiliate the victim.
– It can be to threaten the victim not to report, to hold the victim back by force or use excessive violence or verbal abuse, Jonsson says.
Pure demonstrations of power also occur, such as forcing someone to undress.
– These phenomena have not increased in scope. But they occur to a greater extent when girls are involved, says the researcher, without having a good explanation for the gender difference.
Among the boys, the motives are usually a desire for money, status in their own group and excitement. Conflicts between the perpetrator and the victim can also be a motive.
It is worth noting that in one in five investigations, the ransom victim either refuses to contribute or withdraws along the way. It says both something about the victims’ fears and that they may have a connection to the perpetrator.
Complicated picture
Neither Jonsson nor his colleagues have a good answer as to why the youth robberies are both more and more brutal.
– We follow the development all the time. This can be a puzzle piece in the picture. But we are seeing a disturbing development. We have to take a closer look at that, she says.
–
