European Crime Prevention Award won by Sweden

The European Crime Prevention Award (ECPA) for 2019 was granted to the Swedish Sofielund Approach, in which wide-ranging cooperation and diverse measures helped to reduce drug-related crime and the experience of insecurity in the residential area.

In Sofielund in Malmö, property owners, rental housing companies, companies, the police, the city and the university joined forces to break the negative spiral of the area. Thanks to cooperation and diverse measures, crime and young people's drug use and recruitment to gangs decreased. In particular, the ECPA Jury appreciated the commitment of key actors to solving the community-wide problem and strengthening the neighbourhood. The winning project received EUR 10,000.

In addition, the projects of Germany and Denmark were awarded. A new education and treatment programme (Bengalo) has been developed in Germany for young offenders who currently serve their closed custody sentence and have problems with aggression and addition. The intervention was commended for being evidence-based and it has been thoroughly evaluated. Denmark's award-winning project is an anonymous digital counselling (Netstof.dk) for young people aged 14–25 who experiment with or use drugs. The Jury appreciated the focus of the project on various uses of the Internet to reach young people.

Finland was represented in the competition by the Action for Youth of the Finnish Foundation for Supporting Ex-offenders. The ECPA was given in connection with the Conference of Best Practices of the EU Crime Prevention Network in Helsinki. The theme was to reduce and prevent secondary crime and other harm associated with the use of drugs by young people.

The competition projects are presented on the EU Crime Prevention Network website eucpn.org.

The video of the conference will be available until 12.1.2020.