Police are changing the way they deal with gang violence

At first it was called Frank and applied to Stockholm. It was renamed Frigga and covered the whole country. But soon it was thank you and goodbye. The special police campaign to combat gang violence will end in the “near future”.

“It sounds like we’re lowering our ambitions, but it’s actually the opposite,” Ted Esplund said.

He is deputy commander of the Frig State Police and works daily in the police national operations unit, Noa.

DN has previously written about how the police approach developed in Frigg could be permanently implemented in ongoing work across the country. It involves greater mobility, faster exchange of information and a better understanding of how cybercrime is rooted both locally and internationally.

Concrete has a meaning Special centres have been set up in police districts and will remain after the special event.

– The date has not yet been determined, but I think it will be in the next six months. But the date is not so important to us because the same people will be doing the same thing, just with a slightly different name. Ted Esplund said the biggest difference is that the budget funds should not be deducted from the special activities account.

During Frigg’s time at the agency, hundreds of police officers were seconded from the country’s police regions to bolster the organisation in the Stockholm area, which is the region worst affected by gang-related violence.

Last December Petra Lundh, who resigned as Attorney General to replace Anders Thornberg as national police chief, announced that the Stockholm police will soon have to manage without colleagues from other parts of the country. The idea is that the new operations centre will facilitate cooperation between police regions.

At the same time, they will be given ambitious goals. While Frigg was originally designed to combat gang violence, the mission is now much broader.

– Gang crime is the starting point and the main target, but this approach and this way of working will include much more. It will include criminal finance, order and security and everything from the burning of the Koran to assassination attempts, Ted Esplund said.