Unsafe streets

In the past two months, Wonderful Copenhagen has seen a rash of shootings – around 25. They are often drive-by shootings by masked young men on mopeds that are believed to be related to gang conflicts. Many have taken place in Nørrebro and northwest Copenhagen, districts with high concentrations of immigrants and poverty. The police have increased their presence in the area and introduced stricter policies allowing them to stop and search suspicious figures. Nevertheless, the violence has increased in the past week, with at least one shooting every day.

This is unusual. Such shooting sprees may occur every couple of years when skirmishes over gang turf heat up, but they are not a typical phenomenon in Copenhagen and elsewhere in Denmark. No one has been killed in this latest series of attacks, although some of the victims were in critical condition. People have been hit only in about half the cases. But one factor that has increased the concern among neighborhood residents is that some of the victims have been random passersby with no connection to the gangs involved. The police have issued warnings to young men who may be on the streets in these areas. The US embassy even sent out a warning to American citizens to take extra care when in the neighborhoods.

Sharing the blame

On Monday evening, a group of residents of the area held a torchlit march to protest these developments and take back control of their streets. They complain that the police aren’t doing enough to the prevent the violence. The police, in turn, complain that they do not have enough staffing to do an adequate job, partly because of their duties guarding the border since immigration rules have been made stricter. And the Minister of Justice, Søren Pape Poulsen of the Conservative Party, introduced a new package intended to curb the violence. The measures include efforts to prevent recruitment to gangs, increasing resources to track digital clues to gang activity, and the registration of people who wear bullet-proof vests.

The point is not that Copenhagen is a violent and dangerous place but that this trend is atypical. The crime rate in Denmark is relatively low. In 2015, the intentional homicide rate in Denmark was 0.99 per 100,000 inhabitants. In comparison, in the US, it was nearly five times as high, at 4.88.  Gun ownership is uncommon except among hunters, who need licenses; people don’t own firearms for protection. The prison population is small. Multiple murders of the type that occur in the US every week are unheard of. The local police forces aren’t militarized either, and there is nothing resembling the practice of civil forfeiture in the US. Aside from isolated incidents, most violent crimes involve gangs and their drug trade.

Reefer madness

And as far as I understand, most of the drug trade involves hashish, which raises another issue that seems curiously missing from the discussion of the current wave of violence. Considering Denmark’s reputation for being progressive in public policy, the country is curiously out of step with the trend toward cannabis decriminalization not only in the US but also in much of Western Europe. Drug trade used to be centered on the Freetown Christiania district across the canal from downtown Copenhagen. A crackdown there in 2012 introduced draconian penalties for users as well as dealers. For example, for the first offense, drivers who show traces of cannabis that may have come from consumption a week before lose their driver’s license for three years and get a fine of 4 percent of their gross salary. The result of the concerted effort in Christiania was that the trade spread to other areas in Copenhagen, as the police had predicted it would.

The mayor of Copenhagen, Social Democrat Frank Jensen, and the left-leaning city council, have proposed legalizing cannabis on a trial basis on a few occasions, primarily for the purpose of controlling distribution and reducing violent crime. Every time, the proposal was rejected by the right-wing parties and Social Democrats representing a large majority in Parliament. There is a trial project to allow medical marijuana, and the population is roughly evenly divided on the issue of legalization. But among polite society, weed is still associated with social dysfunction and legalization is considered encouragement. In all the alarm about the recent spate of shootings, I haven’t noticed any mention of the decriminalization option. The violence may subside again, but it will probably recur as long as the country remains a holdout in the futile war on drugs.