Danish police will monitor criminal families under a new national strategy that targets crime seen as being passed down across generations. The move follows a mapping exercise by the National Police (Rigspolitiet) and a decision by Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard to apply some of the same tools used against criminal gangs to selected families across Denmark.
A new national strategy on criminal families
The Danish government has asked the police to conduct systematic monitoring of criminal families in the same way as existing surveillance of organised criminal gangs. The strategy builds on a national overview compiled by Rigspolitiet, which identified families where a large share of members have repeated convictions and where authorities describe a persistent “criminal culture”.
According to figures reported by Danish authorities, a group of 17 families will be subject to national-level monitoring, while police districts will follow up on around 100 additional families locally. Together, the 17 families comprise roughly 700 individuals, and members have accumulated about 1,230 convictions over the past five years for offences including violent crime, weapons offences and drug-related crimes.
The government argues that the initiative is intended to strengthen the fight against organised, family-based crime and to protect local communities where, according to police, a small number of extended families can play a dominant role in criminal activities.
How Danish police define a criminal family
Rigspolitiet describes a criminal family as one where a criminal lifestyle is widespread among adult members and is passed on across generations. In this definition, the focus is not only on individual offenders but on a wider family network in which many members are either organised criminals or persistent repeat offenders.
The families identified in the national overview are distributed across several police districts, including the Copenhagen area and parts of Jutland and Funen. Most members hold Danish citizenship, while others have backgrounds in a range of countries. The authorities emphasise that the list is based on police data and local assessments and will be regularly updated as investigations and court cases evolve.
At the same time, researchers and NGOs in Denmark point out that family-based crime is a complex phenomenon. Studies by the Rockwool Foundation and others have shown that social disadvantage, residential segregation and partner choice can all contribute to patterns where criminal convictions cluster in certain families over several generations, without necessarily implying that all family members are part of a coordinated criminal group.
Monitoring tools borrowed from gang legislation
By deciding to monitor criminal families in a similar way to gangs, the Justice Ministry aims to extend existing instruments against organised crime. These tools include structured intelligence gathering, closer coordination between police districts, and the possibility of using special investigative measures when legal conditions are met.
The authorities stress that any intervention must respect Danish law and international human rights obligations, including the principle of individual criminal responsibility. The monitoring is intended to provide a better overview of criminal networks, identify key actors and support targeted investigations, rather than to criminalise families as such.
In practice, the approach is expected to combine traditional policing with preventive work. Existing cooperation between schools, social services and the police – known in Denmark as the SSP collaboration – will remain a central mechanism for identifying children and young people who may be at risk of being drawn into a criminal environment.
Children, social services and the risk of stigmatization
A significant share of the people included in the 17 nationally monitored families are children and teenagers under the age of 15. This raises questions about how authorities can balance crime prevention with the need to avoid stigmatizing minors on the basis of their family background.
The Justice Ministry has underlined that children cannot be held responsible for offences committed by adult relatives and that the main objective is to prevent young people from being pulled into family-based criminal patterns. Social services and schools are expected to play a central role in offering support, supervision and alternative opportunities.
However, civil society organisations have warned that labelling entire groups as criminal families may reinforce negative stereotypes and increase distrust towards the authorities in some neighbourhoods. They argue that any new tools must be accompanied by safeguards to ensure transparency, proportionality and the right to appeal decisions that affect individuals.
Nordic and European debates on family-based crime
The Danish initiative fits into a broader Nordic and European debate on family-based and clan-related crime. Police and policymakers in Sweden, Norway and other European countries have in recent years drawn attention to extended families or clans that, according to authorities, play a central role in organised crime in certain areas.
In Sweden, discussions about “clan crime” have influenced both public debate and policy proposals, although researchers and human rights organisations have cautioned against overgeneralisation and ethnic profiling. Similar concerns are present in Denmark, where the term criminal family is controversial and where experts stress the need to distinguish between individual responsibility, social inheritance and collective labelling.
For Nordic and EU observers, the Danish model will be closely watched as an example of how a state seeks to combine tougher tools against organised crime with preventive social policies. Its implementation, and the way it affects children and local communities, is likely to shape future discussions on security, social cohesion and fundamental rights in the region.
What comes next for Danish police and criminal families
The national overview of criminal families is still being refined, and Danish police will continue to adjust the list as new information emerges. The Justice Ministry has signalled that further legal and policy measures could follow, aiming to align the treatment of criminal families more closely with existing gang legislation.
The government has framed the strategy as a necessary response to serious, long-term crime that undermines trust and safety in local communities. Critics, meanwhile, will monitor whether the new approach leads to measurable reductions in crime without disproportionately affecting specific groups or weakening legal safeguards.
As other Nordic and European countries search for effective responses to persistent, family-based crime, Denmark’s experience with monitoring criminal families is likely to feed into a wider debate on how far states should go in targeting extended family networks – and how to balance security concerns with the protection of individual rights.
