Youth robbery is becoming increasingly raw: "More violence and more humiliation"

The number of robberies where the victims are under 18 has more than doubled between 2016 and 2019, according to a report from the police. Last year 2,484 such robberies were reported and often the perpetrators are also minors or not even criminal, ie under 15 years.

Susanne Thornberg and Pia Vohl Ahlberg have worked for many years as a youth investigator in Haninge municipality, south of Stockholm. They say that the youth robbery has become rougher a while back, where the victims are humiliated and then threatened with silence.

- It has become more difficult to do. People do not want to participate, they fear being called "snitchers" if they tell the police what happened, says Susanne Thornberg.

The police say that the perpetrator robs in groups, is masked and dressed in similar clothes, making them more difficult to identify. Both feel that the robbers in questioning behave like hardened criminals, even though they are young.

- They don't want to tell you anything. You say "no comments" to everything we ask, says Pia Vohl Ahlberg.

- The youngest I had to deal with was 14 years. He wanted to record the interview himself on the cellphone, in order to show his friends that he did not talk.

According to the police report, more than 6,100 boys and girls under 15 were reported for violent crimes against minors in 2019. This is an increase of 35 percent since 2016.

Why the robbers humiliate their victims, as in the noted case of Liam, they find it difficult to find an explanation for, but think it is about control and to prevent the victims from talking to the police.

- You want to show that you decide. It is very threatening after the robbery as well. "We know where you live and where your mother works, we know everything about you," says Pia Vohl Ahlberg.

- I've had to deal with girls who ended a robbery by pouring one and a half liters of coke on the robbery victim afterwards so she gets heaped and very messy. There is no reason to do so.

You can partly understand the mechanism of the degradation by considering a robbery as a bullying situation, says Clara Hellner, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Karolinska Institute.

- In bullying, the aim is to degrade the victim, for example by filming.

Is it about the dehumanization of the victim?

- When you are in a group, you are more affected by the group than by the relationship with the victim. It is easier to get rid of the victim if you are in a group, says Clara Hellner.

The fact that the punishment for young robbers can be perceived as mild also means that many do not want to participate in the investigations.

- The robbers can get youth service a number of hours. I can understand if the plaintiffs are scared and do not want to go ahead unless there are so many consequences for the offender, says Pia Vohl Ahlberg.