A new report from the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society Affairs (MUCF) shows that a gang criminal costs society just over SEK 23 million over a lifetime.
At the same time, an open leisure activity that could receive 15,000 to 20,000 visits per year has an annual price tag of SEK 4 million.
If the business would then succeed in keeping a person away from gang crime every four years, it would be self-financed, says economist Ingvar Nilsson, who was involved in producing the report.
- Admittedly, in the first phase we will get a kind of investment hump, but in a fairly short time this will generate a societal winter that is significant and then we are talking 10 to 100 million, maybe billions.
Evil sprial of cuts
According to the report, crime prevention measures are being cut today, which leads to exclusion and crime consuming even greater resources - which in turn leads to even more cuts.
- Today we have a pattern where you may save on preventive measures for budgetary reasons, you do not catch the young people in time and they become incredibly costly, says Ingvar Nilsson who
- But we must also develop the skills of the staff who work with this group because it is very difficult to work with, says Ingvar Nilsson.
How do you know this will help someone?
- Because we have met so many who can describe how the meeting with the good leisure leader can be so crucial for the future.
It may be enough that it is adults who see the children, because they are often unseen and have been met by a lack of respect for adults, says Ingvar Nilsson.