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Deputy Chief of National Police Mats Löfving’s interview in Ekot last weekend struck like a bomb in the Swedish debate. The second-highest-ranking police force in the country claims there are around 40 criminal clans in Sweden. Some of them, Löfving said, have emigrated to Sweden with the aim of committing crimes.
Per Brinkemo is the author of the book “Between Clan and State” and has studied what happens when traditional clan structures collide with Western model societies, with a strong state, an independent judiciary and a clear focus on the individual. .
He is not particularly surprised by Mats Löfving’s statement.
– That you have a number and then you have identified 40, I am a little surprised, but I am not surprised that there are clans in Sweden, he says.
For the interest of Brinkemo Clan structures were raised when he was working in a Somali association in Skåne, but he notes that clan societies exist in many countries, including Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, and Afghanistan.
He partly opposes the terminology used by the Swedish police and believes that they do not make sense when describing the phenomenon as “criminal family networks”. The word clan is much more accurate, he says.
– If you say family or relatives, a fairly small group is included. But these are large groups that are also transnational. The word clan also includes the concept of honor, and it is not only about the woman and the woman’s place, but there is a toughness that means defending the reputation of the family at all costs. Every insult is taken very seriously. In the clan structure, there is also a kind of legal function that does not recognize the state and where it is the clan, not the individual, that is important, says Per Brinkemo.
He raises the circumscribed the meeting at the Posthotellet in Gothenburg, where representatives of various criminal networks met, according to information to DN to make peace in a conflict that in a short time led to two assassination attempts.
According to Per Brinkemo, what characterizes clan structures is that the family, or clan, is superior to everything. It comes before the individual, and definitely before things like the authorities and the judiciary. The clan fulfills for its members all the functions that a Swede is accustomed to finding in the office of social insurance and social services, or for that matter in the police.
– There is a total loyalty to your own group. You’re after a clan person no matter what they do, says Brinkemo.
– It happens out of necessity and a clan is not in itself something criminal. But if this structure turns into crime, it is very difficult to access it, because it is more than just these loose groups that we see shooting at each other. It is a system in which you have institutionalized a way of solving problems according to your own principles. Where it is not punished but it is compensated, very similar to what we saw in the Post Hotel in Gothenburg. You pay to avoid blood revenge, he says.
Although far from According to Per Brinkemo, all members of a family that is involved in a criminal network get involved in crime, there are mechanisms that protect and strengthen people active in crime. The family “closes” behind “their children”, even if they commit serious crimes.
– I usually take the example that if my son slaps the neighbor, I do not contact the police but go and talk to the parents and the boy in question. But there is a limit at which I would actually report my son to the police and do my best, he says and continues:
– The characteristic of criminal clans is not that they are all criminals, but the social contract that you and I have with the state, the social contract, does not apply. The social contract applies to the family and the authorities are not trusted.
