The case in brief: • The Conflict Council in Oslo receives few cases from the police, despite growing concern about child crime in the capital.• The Conflict Council, which helps people, including children under 15, to resolve conflicts, believes they have the capacity to receive more cases.• In 2023, the Conflict Council in Oslo received only 31 cases about children under the age of 15, compared to 335 cases in the South-West and 156 cases in Trøndelag.• The Conflict Council believes that their services can be an important tool to help children who have committed criminal acts to take responsibility and process their actions.• The conflict council in Sør-West and Trøndelag has had close cooperation with the police, and believes this is one of the reasons why they receive more cases.• The conflict council in Oslo has had several meetings with the police to discuss how they can receive more cases, and believes there is great potential for improvement. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. At the same time as there is increasing concern that child crime in Oslo is increasing and becoming more brutal, there is a tool that the capital hardly uses. The Conflict Council is used extensively in many other places in the country, but in Oslo the department receives almost no cases. WANT MORE CASES: Katinka Hartmann is head of the Oslo Conflict Council and believes many more cases about children under 15 should be sent to them. Photo: Anders Dal – We have the capacity to receive many more people than today, says head of the Oslo Conflict Council Katinka Hartmann. What is the Conflict Council? The Conflict Council is a government body that helps people in conflict. They mediate in both criminal and civil cases, with more than 500 mediators across the country. Often people in conflict can go to the Conflict Council instead of going to the courtroom. The purpose is that through dialogue the parties can find good solutions, whether it is about making amends for specific violations of the law, or restoring interpersonal relationships. In Norway, there are twelve departments across the country, each covering its own geographical area. It’s a low-threshold offer, and free to use. Anyone can send a case to the conflict council: child protection, schools and ordinary people who need help in resolving a conflict. But usually it is the police who submit the cases. The Conflict Council in Oslo covers both the capital, Romerike, Asker and Bærum. Source: www.konfliktraadet.no South-West received 335 cases, Oslo received 31 cases The Conflict Council is a state body that helps with dialogue and mediation in conflicts – also for children under 15 years of age. In Sør-Vest, the conflict council received 335 cases involving children under 15 for mediation last year, while the conflict council in Trøndelag received 156 cases and over 300 children received help. But in the whole of 2023, the office in Oslo received only 31 such cases. – It is far too small, says Hartmann. Check the figures from this year in all the districts further down in the case. – The police should use us more When a child under the age of 15 commits a criminal act, the police must drop the case because the child is under the criminal minimum age. – So for those young people, the police do not have any special tools, she says. But the Conflict Council has that. – The Conflict Council is a safe meeting place for children under 15 who are in conflict. Here, children who have committed offenses can meet the person with whom they have a dispute and they must take responsibility for their actions. – With us, they can get help to talk together, and to process the pain they have been through. We have mediators who are good at getting people to talk. At the same time, the aggrieved get answers to the questions they have, she believes. – They can also regain their security to a greater extent by meeting the other person and talking about what has happened. LOW THRESHOLD: – We see that the offer works and that many of the children’s conflicts are resolved, says the Conflict Council. Photo: Kjell Arvid Stølen High shoulders and little trust The Conflict Council in Oslo believes that many young people who have been exposed to violence and abuse often become afraid. – Then the threshold is much lower for taking a knife out yourself or committing other crimes later. So getting the word out in a safe environment early on is very wise, says Hartmann. She believes that they see great results in the cases they handle in Oslo. – The children come in with high shoulders and little trust in each other, and leave our meetings with a much greater belief that it will be possible to get along with each other in the future. We see this daily. At the Conflict Council, a common procedure is that the children must find their way forward together. – It can be something as simple as agreeing in advance what they will do when they next meet each other in the street, says Hartmann. OUT OF CRIMINALITY: One of the aims of the Conflict Council is to help children away from crime. Here is Eidsvoll prison, where children over the criminal minimum age can be detained. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB scanpix – We train the police – It is very rare that children who have been to mediation with us come back to us in a new case. And the police know that, says head of the Conflict Council in the South-West, Kirsten Borsheim. The Conflict Council in the South-West has had a year-long collaboration with them where they share the results. Borsheim believes one of the reasons why the police choose to send so many cases to them is because they know it works. – It is a good tradition for the police here to send cases involving children under the age of 15 to us. In Trøndelag, too, they have worked closely and for a long time with the police. – We train the police in how to report the cases to us, so they become good at sending them without a lot of fuss and paperwork, says leader of the Trøndelag Conflict Council, Iren Sørfjordmo. Because there are always new and young police officers on the job, they must constantly make sure that the police officers know about the conflict council and how to use them, she emphasizes. – We have a long-term plan with the police. Aim to raise the figures for Oslo But in Oslo it is different. – The police say they receive more cases involving children, but at the same time we do not get many more cases to the conflict council from that target group. There is great potential for improvement there, says Hartmann. But now they want to address it. The Conflict Council in Oslo has had several meetings with the police this year. Hartmann believes that one of the reasons why the Oslo police send so few cases to them is that they are overworked and that it is “a tiny bit more demanding to send the case to the conflict council than to simply drop it”. – But we are in close dialogue with them about how they can send more cases to us, and I believe and hope that we will receive more cases in the future. They agree that they should achieve more here. Published 04/07/2024, at 08.00
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Important tool against child crime is almost unused – Greater Oslo
