Danish Policy on Robbery

In Denmark robbery is considered a very serious crime as it contains elements of both enrichment and violence or coercion. The maximum penalty for robbery is thus also considerably higher than penalties for theft and violence respectively, just as the penalties for robbery in reality are considerably stricter.

In addition to long maximum penalties, hopefully with a generally preventative effect, the focus is on early prevention to prevent young people from getting into crime, including in the form of street robberies. There is a very unique cooperation between schools, social authorities, and the police, the so-called SSP cooperation, to ensure that young people through social initiatives do not turn to crime, and that unfortunate developments are handled before they develop into actual criminal acts.

Traditionally, financial robberies against banks have been handled by the police together with the Danish Bankers Association. In recent years, there has been increasingly more focus on situational prevention of robberies in relation to financial robberies. Now, we e.g. have so-called cashless branches and safety measures have been introduced, e.g. time delay locks, etc., in banks.

The Danish Police are working close together with the business community  to prevent and investigate commercial robberies against e.g. shops and petrol stations. New projects and cooperations are continuously being made. The latest project is a pilot test where shops can use “DNA-water” as a way to  identify a robber.

Contact details:
The Danish Ministry of Justice:  jm@jm.dk  / http://www.justitsministeriet.dk/english.html,
the National Police Commissioner:  rpch@rpch.dk / http://www.politi.dk/en/servicemenu/home,
The Danish Crime Prevention Council:  dkr@dkr.dk