The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) has been commissioned by the government to investigate how criminal networks recruit children via digital media to commit serious violent crimes.
Three strategies for establishing contact with young people have been identified: crime advertisements distributed online, direct contact with individual children on social media, and the use of contact networks that can “provide” clients with children, says Victor Dudas, project manager.
They don’t seem to really care about how it works. The most important thing is to get children and young people who are breastfeeding. We see a huge variation.
Downplays risks
Once contact is established, great effort is put into persuading the child to accept the assignment and reinforcing the decision with positive affirmation, using messages about easy jobs, money and status. Among the children, economic motives are the most prominent.
And the risks are downplayed. We see communication that is almost child-friendly, says Maria-Medée Almroth, an investigator at Brå.
The tone can quickly change once the person has agreed to an assignment, often becoming more heated and threatening. This can then continue, in principle, around the clock until the assignment is completed.
It is especially in these later stages, when the crime is to be committed, that digital media really takes on a prominent role, as the criminal actors have a direct line of contact with the child. They can reach the child anytime, anywhere, says Dudas.
Strategic stress
They strategically use stress, threats and incitement as a control mechanism, says Almroth.
We see a very high intensity of communication at the end. It becomes very difficult to stop and interrupt at that point.
A long chain of people is required to go from ordering to carrying out violent crimes involving recruited young people. Here, the so-called intermediaries play a crucial role as a link between the often hidden person placing the order and the perpetrator.
The middleman does not have to have a central role in a network. The person is often young or a child themselves, so there is exploitation on several levels, says Almroth.
Brå makes several suggestions for countering recruitment. In addition, the legal system should consider how young perpetrators, who are rarely seen as victims of crime, are handled. For example, it is unusual for recruiters to be investigated for unlawful threats or unlawful coercion.
There is reason to investigate whether criminal law protection can be increased, says Maria-Medée Almroth.
Crime advertisements:
Crime ads are posted in open and closed chat groups, usually in a similar format, with brief descriptions of the assignment and compensation. They can be brief and relate to a specific assignment or consist of longer, more detailed lists of various available criminal assignments.
Targeted contact via social media:
One-on-one contact is initiated with a person in a chat group, often on social media. Various functions can be used to identify, search for and establish contact. One way is to find places where there may be many potential perpetrators, such as drug sales groups.
It can also involve seeking out young people who stand out online by sharing pictures of themselves posing with money or weapons, for example.
Use of existing contact networks:
Existing contacts are used to recruit young people who can carry out criminal assignments. In cases where the other party can provide direct contact with a child, a group chat is usually created. This allows people who were previously unknown to each other to establish contact.
Source: Brå
Brå presents a wide range of proposals for measures to prevent children from being recruited digitally to commit crimes. These include:
Investigate, as part of legislative work, how criminal law protection for children and young people exploited to commit serious crimes can be strengthened.
Evaluate the provision on involving minors in crime to determine whether it has been used as intended by the legislator and whether it has affected criminal actors’ incentives to involve minors in criminal activity.
Crime prevention measures aimed directly at individuals in criminal networks should be prioritized, for example through focused deterrence targeting criminal networks’ use of children as tools of crime. This method is to be tested in 2027.
Address the lack of adult presence that characterizes recruitment via digital media. Develop ways for other adults close to young people to be present on digital media. This could include parents as well as professionals in social services, schools and leisure activities.
