The Danish laws on gang crime have repeatedly been highlighted in the Swedish debate - including by M and SD - which has repeatedly emphasized that Sweden should follow Denmark's example.

The team packages contain several parts.

Some are pure punitive measures, others are more focused on certain geographical areas.

So-called visitation zones can be established in an area, which gives the police the opportunity to visit people without reasonable criminal suspicion.

The police can also introduce a penalty zone - then the person who commits a crime in a certain place is sentenced more severely.

One of these was recently introduced in Copenhagen after three fatal shootings took place in a short time.

"Did not have much effect"

Danish police have repeatedly emphasized that the laws have had an effect in the fight against gang crime.

From a research point of view, the enthusiasm has not been as great.

The Danish criminologist David Sausdal, associate professor at Lund University, believes that it is not possible to know whether the gang laws had any effect on the crime at all because they were not evaluated.

- There is no research that shows that it is the gang laws that have made the difference.

On the contrary, my colleagues in Denmark say that they do not see any correlation between gang law and gang crime.

What is known to work is the social area: school initiatives, social initiatives and initiatives in residential areas.

There you often have quite a lot of success, says David Sausdal.

He believes that this is the big difference from Sweden - that in Denmark "soft" measures were taken at an early stage.

- If I were to do a quick evaluation, I would say that what worked best, which was effective, are the social efforts.

This method with a harder grip has not had a particularly large effect.

Large number of shootings

Despite the fact that the number of gang members has decreased in Denmark, there is no decline in the fatal shooting violence, even though the levels are significantly lower than in Sweden.

In 2020, 16 people were shot to death in Denmark, a sharp increase from the previous year.

- The number of gang members over the past ten years has decreased quite a bit.

But the gang crime that remains has gotten worse.

Those who are part of criminal gangs have become more violence-focused, says David Sausdal.