The Danish government has tabled a new legislative package in an effort to put an end to gang violence in the country. Danes don't want to live in a country like Sweden that saw hundreds of shootings and many deaths related to criminal gang activities last year alone, Denmark's justice minister has said.

This week, the Danish government presented a new legislative package, consisting of 39 measures in total, aimed at creating a safer Danish society.

„No matter where you live in Denmark, and no matter who you are, you need to feel safe when you walk out your front door. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. Today, almost one out of three residents living in vulnerable areas in particular have experienced gang-related crime in their neighbourhood,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a press conference.

In general, these are the same measures that were put forward last summer, but were not adopted by the Danish parliament. They include new crime categories and tougher penalties, as well as initiatives designed to prevent the recruitment of young people into gangs and to speed up the expulsion of convicted foreigners from the country, Samnytt reports.

Mette Frederiksen has also pointed out that the situation in Denmark, with rising crime, is linked to immigration, the Swedish news portal highlights.

„There was a time in Denmark when we did not need particularly harsh punishments because there weren’t so many criminals and crimes. Denmark used to be like this a long time ago. We were the country with the lowest crime rate in the world. And that’s why we didn’t need tough punishments,” the Danish prime minister said, underlining that

Unfortunately, this has now changed, and it is linked to our immigration policy. Crime types have changed significantly. We have to admit that the brutalisation of violent crime that we see in the statistics has an ethnic aspect.

In Denmark, 18 shootings and 4 murders were related to criminal gangs in 2022, which is negligible compared to 391 shootings and 62 deaths linked to gang violence in neighbouring Sweden.

Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, however, stated that

„We don’t want a situation like they have in Sweden. We have managed to put many gang members behind bars. That’s good. But it’s still not good enough,”

he told the press conference and addressed criminal gangs, saying

„My message to gangs is clear: we will not allow you to terrorise ordinary people. There is a strong political will to crack down on your criminal activities and the police will be breathing down your necks. No matter what you engage in, whether you are cheating people out of money or using violence against innocent Danes.”