Report: Gang exit programme launched prematurely

33 gang members waited over a year for help to leave the criminal community due to a lack of resources, according to secret report

A programme designed to help gang members leave their life of crime was launched before it was ready, concludes a previously-unknown 2012 report recently uncovered by TV2 News through a freedom of information request.

The programme was launched in April 2011 and was incredibly popular with gang members who wanted help, which could include being resettled in another part of the country.

But by May 2012, there were 33 men who had waited a year for help, leading the report to conclude that politicians rushed the introduction of the programme.

“The exit programme should not have been announced before the procedures were more ready,” stated the report, which was made by the analysis firm Als Research and was never published nor presented to parliament’s legal committee.

Lars Barfoed (Konservative), who was the justice minister at the time of the programme's launch, hailed it as "an important link in the government’s crime prevention strategy".

"The government needs to ensure gang members across the country, who want to lead a life outside the criminal community, are helped,” Barfoed stated in a 2011 press release.

Speaking to TV2 News yesterday, Jan Mansur Hussain, the head of youth association Vores Unge, stressed the importance of the gang exit programme.

“When [gang members] realise that they want to leave the community, it’s incredibly important that we take them up as quickly as possible,” Hussain said. “When they aren’t helped they can slip back into crime and their gang. “It’s a real shame for those who wanted to get out. I am sure it has meant that people have ended up staying in gangs and have given up on getting out.

Michael Green, the spokesman for the association of former gang members, Foreningen af Tidligere Bandemedlemmer, criticised the previous government's handling of the gang exit strategy.

"It's completely stupid that the former government launched something that didn't exist," Green told TV2. "Rather than helping people out of the gang environment, they have probably done the exact opposite."

The emergence of the critical report arrives one month after police figures showed that only one percent of the 1,700 registered gang members had used the programme.

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