Abstract
In recent years, gang exit programmes in Sweden and Denmark have seen an increase in gang desisters with a different profile than those originally targeted by the programmes. This group of gang desisters is predominantly young (between 15 and 30 years old), has been involved in severe violence and crime, and comes from marginalised and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Many face complex psychological problems, such as trauma and PTSD. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 45 frontline gang exit programme staff in Sweden and Denmark, this article explores the challenges posed by the new generation of gang desisters. Our findings reveal that exit staff face significant challenges in assisting these individuals, in part because they are very young compared to the desisters previously in exit programmes, and because the new generation is characterised by an unprecedentedly high level of vulnerability, needs, and criminal entanglement. Exit workers find challenges in severing gang desisters’ ties with criminal networks, relocating them safely, and addressing their sense of isolation and social exclusion when relocated. We highlight the need for incorporating stronger prosocial support measures in exit interventions to create new opportunities for belonging and community for this group of vulnerable gang desisters.
Introduction
In August 2024, the public debate in the Nordic countries about gang crime, shootings, and use of explosives reached new heights, spurred by violent events reported in the media. The headlines concerned a 17-year-old boy in Sweden who had crossed the border to Denmark to carry out a revenge shooting in Copenhagen. According to the media, the teenager had been recruited on social media platforms and was offered DKK 200,000 (EUR 26,800) to carry out the shooting (DR, 2024; SVT, 2024a). This episode was only one of several incidents that summer in which crime was carried out as a sort of ‘crime as a delivery service’ between rival groups. In the Nordic countries, gang violence has long been framed as an urgent societal problem, with almost daily reports linking shootings and explosions to criminal networks, especially in Sweden (Hradilova-Selin et al., 2023). The emergent and accelerating security threat posed by transborder criminal networks indicates that gang crime in the Nordics requires a response by national governments, whose policy decisions on crime and desistance can be better informed by research into the nature of the current criminal networks and their new generation of gang members. Previous research has approached gang recruitment and desistance as matters of national concern, focusing on specific cities and local neighbourhoods. While attention has been paid to local initiatives against gang recruitment in Sweden and Denmark (e.g., SBU (Statens Beredning för medicinsk och social utvärdering), 2023), less attention has been given to gang desistance programmes in these countries. Hence, we know very little about how the current generation of gang desisters responds to the support systems available in the Nordic context.
This article demonstrates how global and transborder developments in crime challenge existing police-assisted and social-service-assisted gang desistance programmes in a northern European setting. We do so by presenting how exit structures are organised in Denmark and Sweden. Furthermore, we demonstrate how changes in the target group, including in their criminal offending, challenge existing exit frameworks and give rise to new concerns and dilemmas for professional practitioners involved in assisting gang desisters. We ask, what are the key challenges facing exit support systems in Sweden and Denmark today? Based on ethnographic data, including 45 interviews with frontline exit programme staff and crime prevention professionals in the two countries, we show that many of the explanatory frameworks that exit programmes are built on may fail to fully capture the global and cultural intricacies of contemporary life in criminal networks (c.f., Bolden and Iliff, 2022). Thus, the support that current exit programmes are offering might not be sufficient for the new generation of gang desisters. We view the cases we examine in Sweden and Denmark as examples of current global developments in crime (e.g., Franko, 2019). The knowledge gained from comparative perspectives between two European countries on these developments can inform policymakers who are currently involved in cross-border collaborative interventions to prevent gang violence. Furthermore, the article contributes to the existing qualitative literature on gang desistance. While gang desistance is a growing research field internationally (e.g., Bolden and Iliff, 2022; Paternoster and Bushway, 2009; Roman et al., 2017), there is little research on recent developments in gang desistance and exit programmes in the Nordic countries. These developments are not unique to the Nordics, and a deeper understanding of them may be used to shed light on contemporary developments in other parts of Europe.
Exit programmes constitute a central preventive strategy against gangs in Denmark and Sweden. The programmes target individuals who wish to disengage from crime and the social environment involved in criminal offending. Exit programmes (targeting both individuals from various extremist groups and gangs) have been implemented in the Nordics since the mid-2000s (Daugherty, 2019), in Sweden since around 2012, and in Denmark since 2011. Gang exit programs are partnerships between law enforcement, social service providers, and – in some cases – civil society organisations. Designed to help gang members who are motivated to change their lifestyles, the programmes aim to (re)integrate gang desisters into conventional society as law-abiding citizens (DKR, 2024; Kriminalvården et al., 2021). Exit support structures are adapted to the individuals’ needs and usually involve a wide range of social services, such as housing, financial aid and employment, as well as psychological counselling and substance abuse treatment. A critical aspect of exit interventions is that activities and measures are aimed at ‘knifing off’ (Maruna and Roy, 2007) previous gang relations by cutting social ties and relocating people to new cities.
While exit programmes have gained increased political focus in Sweden and Denmark, the research in this area is sparse. Previous studies predominantly consist of research reports and evaluations of the programmes, which provide important information about how the programmes are organised and what kind of assistance is provided to gang desisters (for Sweden, see, e.g., Alstam et al., 2021; Hedlund, 2023; Kriminalvården et al., 2021; Larsson, 2023; Rostami, 2014; Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2016, 2023a; and for Denmark, see, e.g., Danish Ministry of Justice, 2011; Johansen, 2021; Johansen, 2024; Madsen, 2024; Mørck et al., 2020; Pedersen, 2014a, 2014b; Pedersen, 2016). This previous research has primarily focussed on describing structural and bureaucratic challenges in exit programmes and best practices in gang desistance support, while a few studies have examined individuals’ experiences of leaving a gang (Alstam et al., 2021; Alstam and Forkby, 2022; Forkby et al., 2019; Forkby et al., 2020; Forkby et al., 2024; Johansen, 2022). Recent research (Hedlund, 2023; Johansen, 2021) shows that the exit programmes in Sweden and Denmark not only encounter desisters from biker gangs, which has been the focus of much previous research, but also a more diverse and younger group of individuals involved in criminal networks and street culture. In this article, we examine how the complexity of problems related to this ‘new generation’ of street gang desisters poses new challenges to assisted desistance.
We begin by reviewing the gang desistance literature in the Nordics to provide an overview of exit intervention strategies. Thereafter, we present an overview of the design and rationale of exit programmes in Denmark and Sweden. This is followed by our data and study methodology, after which we present the results of our thematic analysis, which identifies three key challenges facing exit programmes in Denmark and Sweden. Our findings show that exit staff find it increasingly difficult to identify and define gang desisters. Exit programmes now encounter a new group of offenders: they are much younger (they can be as young as 15), they come from marginalised and migrant backgrounds, they have committed severe violence, including shootings and explosions, and many suffer from social exclusion, trauma and PTSD, including war-related trauma and secondary trauma. We argue that current exit interventions and their underpinning rationalities are not designed to meet the needs of this group of young, vulnerable and sometimes violent offenders. For instance, exit staff find it difficult to help desisters cut their ties with criminal networks, or exit staff may fail to provide new authentic social relations or sufficient prosocial interventions. Moreover, our findings reveal that moving gang desisters to new cities is a new challenge for exit programmes in both countries, especially with regard to gang desisters’ personal security since new conflicts can erupt in the new locations. We conclude that current exit interventions often fall short when dealing with these individuals, in part because of their young age and unprecedentedly high level of vulnerability, needs, and criminal entanglement.
Previous studies of gang desistance in the Nordics
Qualitative research on gangs and desistance has long been sparse in the Nordics (Forkby et al., 2023). However, recent years have seen the emergence of several in-depth studies on gangs and street culture (e.g., Hedlund et al., 2024; Kalkan, 2021), at-risk youths and desistance (Gålnander et al. 2025; Wahlman 2025; Forkby and Turner, 2016), radicalisation (Tutenges and Sandberg, 2022), gang recruitment and drugs (e.g., Lien, 2014) and pathways out of gangs (e.g., Alstam and Forkby 2022; Alstam et al., 2021; Mørck, 2016, Mørck, 2021; Mørck et al., 2020). There is also a growing body of Nordic research on gang desistance from the perspective of ex-gang members (e.g., Alstam and Forkby, 2022; Forkby et al., 2020; Johansen, 2022). These studies reveal that leaving a gang is often a long, emotional, and sometimes dangerous process, with individuals frequently facing complex social challenges. For instance, a Swedish study by Forkby et al. (2020) highlights that many ex-gang members suffer from PTSD, sleep disturbances, and anxiety after leaving gang life. Additionally, research shows that individuals who have spent years outside conventional society often lack trust in authorities, complicating their efforts to seek support and reintegrate into society (e.g., Forkby et al., 2020).
Much of the existing research on exit interventions in the Nordics is policy-oriented and conducted by governmental agencies in Denmark (e.g., Klement and Pedersen, 2013; Lindstad, 2012; Pedersen and Lindstad, 2011) and in Sweden (e.g., Kriminalvården et al., 2021; Socialstyrelsen, 2023; SOU, 2022; Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2016). Comparative studies of Nordic exit programmes are rare, with Pedersen's (2014a) mapping of exit programmes across Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland being an exception, though it requires updating. Pedersen's study highlights that supporting gang desisters is a challenging endeavour in all Nordic countries, often confronted by uneven organisational support structures and bureaucratic challenges (Pedersen, 2014a).
A few Nordic studies have explored alternative strategies and methods for supporting gang desisters. Mørck's ethnographic work on biker gangs and ethnic minority street gang desisters in Denmark (Mørck, 2016, 2021) is the key contribution. In one of her studies, Mørck (2016) argues that exit support should emphasise alternative, prosocial approaches that provide individuals with access to new forms of meaning and belonging. The study suggests mentorship and community-based, non-state alternatives as viable strategies (Mørck, 2016). Another study by Deuchar et al. (2015) examines a boxing programme for ethnic minority youths in Denmark. The study explores how sports can reshape masculine ‘gang identities’ and discourage criminal behaviour among young men. While the boxing programme helped participants reflect on their life situations and better understand masculinity, the study also emphasises that such programmes may exclude individuals who do not identify with traditional masculine norms, potentially reinforcing gender stereotypes (Deuchar et al., 2015, see also Jump, 2017).
Other Nordic research emphasises the important role of societal, family and friendship bonds in desistance, highlighting the importance of prosocial relationships in the crime desistance process (e.g., Gålnander, 2020). Leaving a gang often entails ruptures with family, friends, and social networks, which can lead to stigma, social exclusion, and welfare dependency (Johansen, 2022). Moreover, studies have shown that access to individualised assistance, housing, employment or education, and opportunities for relocation are shown as promising to facilitate desistance from crime (e.g., Österman, 2019; Todd-Kvam and Todd-Kvam, 2022).
Moreover, a comprehensive literature review of gang research in the Nordics concludes that comparative studies of gang interventions remain notably absent (Petersen and Ladefoged, 2018). The review underscores the need for comparative research to guide policies aimed at facilitating desistance (Petersen and Ladefoged, 2018). Below, we add to these insights, first by providing an overview of the organisation of exit programmes in Sweden and Denmark.
The ‘knifing off’ logics and the organisation of exit programmes
The overall rationale underpinning exit programmes in both Sweden and Denmark is the imperative to cut desisters off from gang environments and to move these individuals out of gang-controlled areas. According to Maruna and Roy (2007), the concept of ‘knifing off’ refers to a process in which ‘individuals are thought to change their lives by severing themselves from harmful environments, undesirable companions, or even the past itself’ (p. 104). Maruna and Roy (2007) further emphasise that this is a process that leads individuals with a criminal past to establish a script for a non-criminal future. In Sweden and Denmark, knifing off is performed through several types of intervention. A key intervention is to move gang desisters to new cities or areas where they are assisted with housing and other welfare support to start a new life and build a new identity away from the gang setting.
While the two countries’ exit programmes share the same overarching rationale, they differ in how they are organised and implemented at the local, regional and national level. Sweden's exit programmes are decentralised and locally managed at the municipal level, whereas exit programmes in Denmark operate within a national framework. In Sweden, each municipality is responsible for their own exit programme; only major cities have established formal exit programmes, whereas smaller cities lack resources to deliver such services (Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2016). Furthermore, in Sweden, there are legal, administrative and bureaucratic barriers tied to the municipal autonomy that can complicate support for individuals seeking help outside of their registered municipality of residence (Kriminalvården et al., 2021). Swedish support services are typically delivered by social service providers, sometimes involving private care and civil society organisations. By contrast, Denmark uses a national framework and an overarching approach to gang exit support across the country. The national framework rests on criminal law regulations and adjustments through a national anti-gang policy, which has been revised four times by the incumbent governments since 2009. The programme is managed locally but guided by a central framework, with a national exit contact point overseeing financial aspects such as relocation and tattoo removal costs. In Denmark, the local implementation of exit programmes varies based on specific needs and gang presence in different regions. For example, in Aarhus, the programme is led by the police in collaboration with social services and jobcentres, while in Copenhagen, it is coordinated by the municipal crime prevention unit in close partnership with the police and employment services. Although the programme is nationally modelled, the distribution of resources to the police and social service units that run the exit programme locally differs radically between the major cities and provincial areas. Like in Sweden, smaller Danish towns may not struggle with gang crime and therefore lack resources and experience-based expertise to assist desistance, yet they receive gang desisters from the big cities, which at times requires trained staff and some kind of specialised support structure.
While the exact numbers of gang desisters are difficult to find due to the lack of statistical data at a national level in Denmark and Sweden, there are some estimated numbers indicating the scale of the programmes. Sweden has recently seen a rise in individuals seeking gang exit assistance. Whereas a few years ago, around 100 individuals each year asked for support, it is now estimated that about 300 gang-leavers in Sweden's largest cities (Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg) seek exit support each year (e.g., Kriminalvården et al., 2021; Hedlund, 2023). The number of individuals seeking exit support in Denmark is significantly lower. In 2024, 30 persons were screened and referred to the Danish programme, and 90 persons were actively enrolled in the programme at the national level (Danske Kommuner, 2024). The Danish National Exit contact point has estimated that 336 candidates have successfully finalised the exit programme since its inception in 2015 (Danske Kommuner, 2024).
The support offered to gang desisters is similar in both countries. When individuals request assistance from exit programmes, the police assess their security situation, and if a confirmed acute threat is identified, they may be relocated to another city or a safehouse. Following this, social service workers evaluate the individual's overall life circumstances and develop an individual support plan, including assistance with housing, psychological counselling, rehabilitation, and employment, depending on the individual's needs. The individual must sign a contract agreeing to avoid criminal activities and substance use during their time in the programme, typically lasting between 1.5 and 2 years, with regular follow-up meetings with exit coordinators. The programme guidelines emphasise that individuals must be motivated to leave a gang and sign a formal contract outlining specific goals related to, for example, housing and employment.
In both Denmark and Sweden, individuals enrolled in the programmes are often moved to smaller municipalities far from their original territories, where the transferring municipality covers initial housing and mentoring costs. In some cases, and based on the police's security assessment, gang desisters are only moved to the suburbs or a different district in the same city. Below, we show how the imperative to move people away and, in this way, to knife off their criminal environments poses new challenges to the exit programmes. Overall, we emphasise how the current target group and bureaucratic frameworks give rise to dilemmas and concerns among exit staff in both countries.
Context, data and methods
This article draws on ethnographic and interview data gathered in two separate research projects, in Sweden between 2022 and 2023 and in Denmark between 2018 and 2021. The Danish project focused on the translation of urban safety politics into everyday partnership policing and new security constellations in Copenhagen, Aarhus and rural areas in Denmark. The Swedish project focused on exit support structures in Sweden's three biggest cities (Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö), with a specific focus on how the programmes are organised, what support they provide to gang-leavers and their challenges (Hedlund 2023). For Sweden, we use data from interviews with 20 social workers, police officers, and crime prevention specialists who work with exit interventions. In addition, we also carried out interviews and conversations with NGOs, private organisations, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities Regions (SKR) and the crime prevention unit at the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen), which supports municipalities’ exit programmes. In Denmark, we use data from 15 interviews with police officers and social workers who work at the local level with the Danish national exit programme in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. An additional set of interviews and ethnographic conversations with key social workers and police officers involved in exit services in Copenhagen have complemented the data material from Aarhus. This data consists of 10 interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023 as part of a research project on the police's implementation of a crime preventive strategy against gang violence in the capital (Johansen and Fynbo, 2025). The qualitative, semi-structured interviews in Aarhus were part of in situ ethnographic fieldwork in the exit programme, including fieldnotes on the police and social workers in their everyday work. Observations focused on the staff's casework, meetings, collaboration with welfare professionals, and encounters with selected gang defectors.
Both research projects provided insight into challenges related to gang desistance and into how the staff sought to solve these challenges through collaborative and interpersonal relational work with gang desisters and professionals in the welfare system. Although the research projects were carried out by different researchers, in different countries and with slightly different research questions, the projects bore many similarities in terms of methods, research participants and the focus on exit programmes and desistance. In combination, the two projects have collected a vast amount of ethnographic material and interviews with professionals working in the same field, but in two neighbouring countries. For the analysis conducted in this article, we only use data from the projects that were comparable and based on similar interview questions. The data consists of interviews with professionals working in exit programmes. Although we interviewed professionals working with desisters within municipalities, civil society, and private initiatives, our focus in this article is exclusively on municipal/state-based exit programmes, as they are responsible for deciding on interventions for gang desisters and coordinating desistance support and services. However, interviews with private or NGO staff working with desistance have contributed to our analysis as background information. In both projects, the interviews were semi-structured and encouraged exit staff to reflect on how exit programmes are organised, how exit staff define the target group, what kind of support they offer to individuals, as well as the main challenges professionals encounter in desistance work. Interviews in both countries lasted between 1 and 2 hours and were carried out as individual or focus group interviews. We have transcribed all interviews, except informal conversations.
Working with gang desistance is sensitive and can be surrounded by political attention and moral concerns. The interviewees participated in the study in their professional roles, not as private individuals. They had differing opinions about their work, and there were sometimes clear tensions between collaborating partners, such as the police and social services, private initiatives and municipal programmes and between individuals and professionals. Therefore, we have carefully followed ethical guidelines in each country. To ensure the protection of interviewees’ identities, we did not share the full data material within the research team. Rather, we only exchanged data excerpts with fully anonymised names, locations, and other identifying features.
To analyse the data, we used thematic analysis. The first author analysed the Swedish data while the second author analysed the Danish data. The researchers used NVivo to organise and structure data from each country individually, but not as part of comparison. After that, we read the interview excerpts from both countries in a collated format. We first conducted an overarching analysis where we looked for obvious similarities and divergences in how exit programmes are organised. We then collectively organised the data in different themes, such as organisation of the programmes, characteristics of gang desisters, support structures, and so on. We then compared the data and was looking for differences and similarities in how the programmes function and how exit staff narrated and described the main challenges they encounter in desistance work. After the overarching comparative analysis, we identified analytical themes focusing specifically on key challenges in both countries.
In our analysis, we focus on the exit staff's interpretation and narratives of the main challenges they face in gang desistance work in both countries. It is important to note that when data collection took place in Sweden, it was during a period when shootings and explosions were peaking, and the number of young people seeking exit programmes was on the increase. In Sweden, there was a need to review how exit programmes functioned and what new challenges municipalities faced as more individuals sought to leave criminal groups. The fact that the study was conducted in such heated times may have influenced the interviewees’ descriptions of the target group. In Denmark, the number of desisters has remained more stable over time, and Denmark has not experienced the same sharp increase in shootings and explosions as Sweden. Yet, it was clear in our data from both countries that the target group now need more welfare assistance, security and protection than before, and working with desistance today is viewed as more resource-intensive in Sweden as well as Denmark.
A limitation of this study is that it is difficult to draw general conclusions by comparing exit programmes in different countries. Exit programmes can vary between cities depending on available resources and specific needs. We have only interviewed staff from larger cities in Denmark and Sweden and have therefore excluded smaller towns and alternative exit programmes. Despite these limitations, we believe that it is valuable, necessary even, to conduct cross-country analysis of exit programmes and desistance since gang crime is currently crossing the border between them. Denmark and Sweden share many similarities in terms of their welfare systems and how exit programmes are organised. In our analysis, we highlight both similarities and differences, focusing on the challenges faced by exit staff working with desistance as well as the general patterns observed across both countries.
Findings
Our findings are organised in three sections that highlight three major challenges now facing exit programmes in Denmark and Sweden. The first challenge stems from the interpretation that the target group for exit programmes has changed significantly over the past decade, which implies that the exit programmes’ rationale of knifing off may fail to match the needs of the new generation of gang desisters. The second challenge relates to relocations and the difficulties of moving vulnerable individuals to new locations. The third concern centres on providing prosocial support and offering alternative social networks for these individuals. In the concluding section, we discuss some of the implications of these findings, demonstrating that current exit programmes are not fully designed to meet the needs of this target group and that prosocial support mechanisms need to be strengthened.
The new generation of gang desisters
In our analysis of data from Sweden and Denmark, one theme that stands out is that the gang landscape had changed significantly over the last few years, which is posing new challenges to exit programmes. Below, we emphasise three features of the target group that gave rise to concerns in assisting desistance across the countries: the new generation of gang desisters is hard to define for exit staff; this new generation suffers from a hitherto unseen complexity of social problems; and the target group are much younger than the gang desisters that exit staff have been used to dealing with.
Exit programmes in Sweden and Denmark have always met a target group that is difficult to define and identify, and supporting gang desisters through the exit process has consistently been perceived as complex and challenging (e.g., Johansen, 2021; Alstam et al., 2021). This applies to all individuals, whether they seek to leave an organised criminal group, a biker gang, or a street group. In our interview material, exit programme staff emphasised that they continue to work with individuals from various criminal environments and backgrounds. They meet individuals from organised groups and biker gangs, who come from environments where their gang identity is often shaped by the group's shared rules and social norms. Members of organised gangs were seen as easier to define, as they have long been the primary target group for exit programmes, and because established ‘social representations’ of them exist (Tutenges et al., 2025). Additionally, their pathways out of crime are well-documented, having been studied for decades. By contrast, the ‘social representations’ of the new generation of gang members are more ambiguous. Exit staff described this emerging target group as less uniform and less predictable, often coming from loosely organised criminal networks, and they also meet individuals who do not identify with a gang affiliation. In Sweden, interviewees highlighted key differences between contemporary networks and those that are more organised, explaining that the new target group is significantly younger, gang violence has become more ruthless both within and between groups, and family members are increasingly being targeted in gang conflicts. As one exit worker explained: The new target group … [is] individuals who are involved in shootings or explosions, or groups seeking revenge against each other. What do we call the person who comes to us saying, ‘I want help’? Today, they’re labeled as young offenders, which is technically correct, but if they approach social services themselves, saying, ‘I can’t take it anymore’ or ‘I’m being threatened’. ‘Mom and Dad, we’ve received bomb threats.’ This is a reality we’re dealing with […] It is difficult to understand these migrant families and to pinpoint how to support them in the best way. The defectors are from very vulnerable families. You can say that the ‘traditional ethnic Danes’ [biker gangs] are extremely criminal, but they still have another grounding […] There are cultural differences, also in the sense that those who struggle the most are from really dysfunctional families.
Third, the younger age of gang desisters is a key feature of the target group that raises new concerns for assisted desistance, especially in Sweden. Recent data show that the most serious crimes in Sweden tend to be committed by young persons, including shootings, use of explosives, and executions (Öberg, 2020: 9). For example, the Swedish national prosecution office states that during the first half of the year 2024, 93 children under the age of 15 were suspected of involvement in gang-related murders and use of explosives (cited in SVT, 2024b, see also e.g., Swedish National Audit Office, 2024; The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2023a). Younger individuals are now seeking support to exit a gang. However, minors are not covered by municipalities more established exit programmes in Sweden, since different laws apply to children. The fact that children are not targeted by exit programmes in Sweden for clarification “(but are covered by regular social service assistance)” was a great concern among some of the exit staff, who argued that young offenders are not getting the desistance support they may need. One interviewee describes frustrations with the rigid definition: We know today that many young people aged 16–17, just like those over 18, are equally involved in organized crime. They carry firearms and commit very, very serious crimes, yet they will never be defined as ‘gang desisters’.
The three features described above demonstrate how exit staff describe the target group of exit programmes and how it is becoming increasingly difficult to define gang members. Below, we examine a second challenge evident in our data: the dilemma of relocating an increasing number of desisters who are exposed to serious security threats to new cities far from where they originally are.
Moving gang desisters out of criminal environments
As previously mentioned, moving desisters to new locations is a key intervention in exit programmes. This often follows a two-step process. First, desisters are offered immediate and temporary relocation away from the gang territory for some days, weeks or months to mitigate acute threats to their personal safety and security. This intervention targets those with confirmed threats of being harmed or killed by rivals. In both countries, the number of ‘especially vulnerable gang desisters’, a category describing group members who face serious and immediate safety and security risks, has increased. Some of these individuals need a protected identity and may require police assistance. Second, desisters can be offered support for permanent housing in a location away from the gang territory in a different neighbourhood or in a new city. Below, we focus on two challenges common to both types of intervention: the process of coordinating housing solutions to avoid the potential spread of new conflicts and how to handle safety and security concerns in the new setting.
Exit staff generally give much attention to identifying, coordinating and securing safe housing. It may be imperative that relocated individuals cannot be found or identified by rival groups or previous gang members in the new setting. In the Swedish interviews, we find general concerns about the increasing demand for housing as the number of gang desisters has greatly increased over recent years, and the relocations are a time-consuming task that demand specific knowledge about groups and criminal networks. Exit coordinators must have a solid understanding of how gang conflicts evolve in and across countries, they must keep track of rivals, identify threats and predict potential retaliations and ensure that individuals are relocated to places where they cannot be found by enemies. Despite Sweden being one of Europe's largest countries, exit staff use the expression ‘Sweden is a small country’, meaning that there is a risk that gang desisters are accidentally placed in proximity to each other. One interviewee expresses such concerns: If all municipalities place [gang desisters] in different ways, we don’t know if gang desisters are being placed [in the same or nearby locations], which creates a risk of collisions and brings a lot of dangers. I see it as there not being a secure system. (Hedlund, 2023:69) If the defector has been active in a gang in [city] and is placed just two courtyards away from someone from a rival gang from [city], it creates a breeding ground for a major problem. As soon as one of them makes a small misstep, it's going to become a problem. (Hedlund, 2023:69)
Swedish interviewees highlight yet another challenge related to relocations: the difficulty of protecting the identity of individuals in the age of AI and social media. One interviewee explains that many group members have built their status and gang reputation through self-promotion on social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram: They [gang desisters] have posted photos and videos of themselves, posing with guns and bulletproof vests. Their strong online visibility poses new security risks when they are relocated.
Relocating gang desisters to new municipalities appeared in the data, as a
Isolation and prosocial support
The third key challenge that exit programmes are currently facing is related to the provision of prosocial support, which can play a crucial role in sustained desistance, identity change, and the (re)integration of desisters (e.g., Forkby et al., 2024; Todd-Kvam and Todd-Kvam, 2022). Our interview data indicate that one of the most challenging parts of assisted desistance is helping individuals overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness. Moving gang desisters away from their social environment is one of the most vulnerable moments in the exit process, according to our interviewees. Being in a ‘stage of liminality’ (Alstam and Forkby, 2022), gang desisters must distance themselves from their past lifestyles and abandon previous norms and behaviours while navigating towards an unknown future. Suddenly being alone in a new setting is often accompanied with feelings of acute loneliness, guilt, regret, and social exclusion (Johansen, 2022). One interviewee in Denmark explains that desisters ‘cannot be on their own, they give up, it is as if street gang members can never be alone’. He adds that most failed attempts to desist happen within the first 24 hours, which is a source of frustration for staff who are responsible for the safety of these individuals. Exit staff in Sweden share this experience; one of them explains: They feel very lonely when they leave [the group]. They end up in a completely new situation and lose much of their previous life […] Part of the exit process is to learn how to become a ‘new’ person that no longer identifies as a ‘gang member’. Suddenly, they go from being someone who is quite visible and heard … to not being seen at all. While some gang desisters understand the seriousness of the threat and fully accept the need for isolation, others struggle to adjust [to their new lifestyle].
In our interpretation, experiences of profound loneliness also point to a deeper issue: the social exclusion and marginalised nature of these individuals prior to joining exit programmes. The imperative to knife off past and present gang relations and social networks does not resonate well with how the groups are composed. Many of these criminal gangs reside in neighbourhoods in large cities characterised by closely knit social environments, where criminal and non-criminal networks may be mutually embedded. The neighbourhoods are both street gang environments and family environments, which means that street gang desisters must leave entire social worlds behind, including non-criminal relationships and their childhood home. Most street gang desisters described in our interview data did not have any alternative prosocial relationship at hand that could support their social integration into the majority society. Exit staff in Denmark explain that some street gang desisters they support had never been socialised into Danish majority society in the first place, and thus lacked vital, authentic relationships outside the street culture environment. One Danish exit coordinator explains: It is a problem that we cannot offer an alternative to what they come from, they have to go out there and find new friends themselves. But how do you do that when you are new in town? […] We cannot provide them with prosocial relationships. We see how hard it is for them to participate in lunch breaks at a workplace, they feel like complete strangers, they simply do not know how to small-talk or just talk to people in a ‘normal way’. They have to learn how to speak a new language, in a figurative sense, the street language doesn’t work here.
Discussion and conclusions
This article has analysed how exit programmes are organised in Denmark and Sweden and how local and trans-border crime, as well as the emerging new group of gang desisters, are marked by global trends that challenge the structure of exit programmes and give raise new concerns in assisted desistance. Previous research from Nordic countries has shown that gang desisters often suffer from a wide range of social problems, such as substance abuse, debt, trauma from previous violence, social marginalisation, and unemployment (e.g., Forkby et al., 2019; Pedersen, 2014a, 2014b). Our data support these findings; exit programmes are still targeting individuals with a variety of social needs, but on top of this, they are increasingly dealing with a new group of desisters who differ partly from previous gang members. The new challenges posed by this group have not been discussed in previous research on gang desistance in the Nordics.
Overall, our findings show that exit programmes face challenges due to accelerating changes in the criminal landscape. These challenges are related to the target group: who they are, the difficulties in identifying and describing them, their social problems and vulnerable backgrounds. We found that there are new challenges for desistance in relation to how exit programmes handle housing, relocations, security, and prosocial support. Supporting desistance still requires comprehensive welfare support like previously, but exit staff also need more knowledge of how trans-border criminal networks operate, an understanding of how criminal groups recruit and exploit younger individuals, how gangs use social media, and careful security assessment.
The changing character of criminal networks complicates the definition of a ‘gang desister’ and the design of exit interventions that effectively address social needs, facilitate desistance, and protect individuals from retaliatory attacks. Trends in global crime, including the influence of social media, are impacting gang disputes, the severity of violence, and the processes of recruitment and desistance (see, e.g., Hyatt et al., 2021). At the same time, exit programmes in both countries face local bureaucratic and administrative challenges, such as securing housing, coordinating relocations, and ensuring safety. Moreover, as research from other countries has shown, placing defectors in unsuitable locations can lead to detrimental consequences, including the emergence of new conflicts and criminal outposts (see, e.g., Factor et al., 2015). We also saw how severing ties with gang environments and encouraging prosocial relationships is especially challenging in contexts where individuals who feel socially excluded from mainstream society gain a sense of belonging from their street gang. The overall findings of this research show that exit staff face multiple challenges and that current exit interventions may not be sufficiently designed to support an even more diverse target group.
One limitation of this study is that the article focuses on issues for which there is little previous research in the Nordic context. For example, there is a lack of qualitative research on changes in the criminal landscape and how criminal networks operate in and across borders. Furthermore, there is little research on young offenders and new phenomena, such as ‘crime as a service’. Despite these limitations, this study provides valuable insights by presenting the perspectives of exit staff working with gang desistance and how they experience the current situation.
To conclude, supporting gang desisters is a difficult and complex process, with no quick fixes or simple solutions. This study highlights several insights for research on and design and implementation of desistance interventions in future. We need to rethink what the exit programmes should entail, particularly concerning how gang desisters are defined. Broadening the definition to include younger individuals from a wider spectrum of criminal groups and marginalised populations is essential. Moreover, there is a need to better understand the evolving dynamics of criminal networks and the characteristics of the group members. Future research should prioritise young offenders, with a focus on developing exit interventions designed to meet the needs of these vulnerable individuals. Much work in this vein is currently being developed in Sweden, and other countries could learn from such initiatives. In addition, attention must be given to new security concerns and the safe relocation of these individuals. For individuals facing threats and retaliation, enhanced protective measures are important for ensuring their security. Also, more research is needed on how social media influences both recruitment and desistance as well as what impact social media may have for gang desisters in the exit process. Finally, we argue that prosocial support plays a critical role in facilitating idenitity change and desistance, which concurs with previous research (e.g., Bushway and Paternoster, 2014; Maruna 2001; Todd-Kvam and Todd-Kvam, 2022). Based on our findings, we recommend that exit programme strategies place greater emphasis on reintegration of former gang members and creating opportunities for belonging and prosocial support. This could involve building partnerships with employers, mentors, and support groups, as well as collaborating with community organisations in the communities’ desisters are relocated. Such approaches can help facilitate identity transformation and social reintegration into the majority society.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the generous support that made this research possible. They would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which helped us to improve the article. Also, many thanks to all research participants.
Ethical approval and informed consent statements
The research in Sweden was approved by the Swedish Ethics Review Authority (2019-01114). The research in Denmark followed the Danish Code of Conduct on Research Integrity under the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Nordic Research Council for Criminology (NSfK) under joint Nordic projects.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data availability statement
This research is based on anonymous interviews. Due to confidentiality and to protect the identity of our research participants, the data are not made publicly available.