• Municipalities can organise their preventive work in different ways. Regardless of how the work is organised, it is very important that the support services build trusting relationships with the children and young people they are tasked with helping.
• It is important that the municipal support services have sufficient capacity and flexibility to adapt their services and measures so they are available when young people need them. This flexibility and capacity are currently lacking in parts of the preventive services.
• The police’s use of resources for threat assessment and preparedness work has increased, which has reduced their capacity to carry out crime prevention work.

• There is no shared understanding of roles and responsibilities in preventive work at the municipal level.
• There is a lack of policy direction and few professional guidelines in the field of crime prevention.
• Sectorisation and silo thinking undermine holistic thinking and cross-sectoral collaboration in the preventive work.
• Unclear lines of responsibility are particularly evident when the child welfare services and specialist health services work together to follow up children with substance abuse and mental health challenges. Many are concerned about drug use among children and young people.

• The complexity of juvenile cases is one of the biggest challenges in investigating cases with perpetrators under the age of 18 (U18 cases). There may be many people involved, the young person may be reported in several cases, and different cases often require different approaches.
• The case processing time in U18 cases decreased for several actors in the criminal justice process up to 2023.
• However, case processing times in the police, courts and mediation services increased in 2024.
• The statutory deadline of six weeks for making a decision whether to prosecute was met in only 64 per cent of U18 cases in 2024, compared with 71 per cent in 2023.
• Although the trend was positive for the district courts in the period 2019–2023, 40 per cent of U18 cases in 2023 did not start the main proceedings within the deadline.
• In 2024, the proportion of U18 cases where the district courts did not meet the deadline increased to almost 50 per cent.
• The requirement for the start-up of youth punishment and youth follow-up in the National Mediation Service was met in the period 2019–2023, but the requirement was not met in 2024.
• The Norwegian Correctional Service meets the target that community sentences and prison sentences for convicted persons under the age of 18 must begin no later than 60 days after a final and enforceable judgement has been received.
• A social inquiry concerning minors (PUM) is an assessment that the prosecuting authority and the court can use to determine an appropriate sanction. The average case processing time in the preparation of such inquiries has decreased over time, but the correctional offices still do not meet the deadline of 28 days set by the Directorate of the Norwegian Correctional Service.

Youth punishment, youth follow-up and community sentences

Youth punishment and youth follow-up are penal sanctions administered by the National Mediation Service that are specially adapted to young people who need follow-up. A community sentence is a sanction consisting of work that is useful to society instead of imprisonment. The Norwegian Correctional Service is responsible for the implementation of community sentences.

The execution of sentences lacks good measures, interdisciplinary cooperation and continuity in follow-up:

• The prosecuting authority and the courts are not free to choose between any of the more severe penalties. There must be a high threshold for imprisoning children, and the consent of the young person and their guardian is required in order for youth follow-up and community sentences to be imposed.
• It can be challenging to find suitable measures when young offenders are to complete youth punishment, youth follow-up and community sentences.
• In particular, there is limited access to day programmes and specialised measures aimed at substance abuse problems, violence and aggressive behaviour or harmful sexual behaviour.
• Interagency cooperation during the execution of a sentence can be demanding, among other things because much of the responsibility is placed on services that have limited capacity.

• In most cases, young people violate the conditions of their sentence, and the National Mediation Service and the Norwegian Correctional Service exercise a high degree of discretion when assessing the consequences of these violations.
• There is a high threshold for interrupting the execution of sentences and modifying the sentence when young people violate the conditions. When young offenders are in need of follow-up, it is often considered appropriate to focus more on providing help than on the punishment aspect.
• Only in a small number of cases does the prosecuting authority decide to interrupt the execution of the sentence as a result of new offences. They often consider it more appropriate to open a new criminal case.

• The severity of the cases and the capacity of the police affect the number of U15 cases that are investigated. Many cases are not investigated by the police.
• However, the police investigate serious cases in the same way as U18 cases, but cases with an alleged perpetrator under the age of 15 are usually dropped.
• The prosecuting authority only transfers very serious cases to the child welfare service.
• In the period 2021–2023, an increasing number of closed U15 cases were referred to mediation as a voluntary measure. In 2024, however, the number of referred cases decreased.
• There is a potential to make more use of mediation in the National Mediation Service.

• Imprisoned minors are generally placed in one of the two youth units established under the Correctional Service.
• In addition to a basic interdisciplinary staff, the youth units have established interagency teams that follow up the young offenders.
• The capacity of the youth units has come under pressure as a result of the increase in serious crime committed by young people under the age of 18.
• More minors are being placed in adult prisons, and the time they spend in these prisons has increased.
• In 2024, 55 out of 78 new imprisonments of minors were made in adult prisons.

• There are shortcomings in the cooperation between the police and the child welfare service when children and young people are suspected of having committed offences.
• There are weaknesses in the cooperation to achieve good transitions when children and young people move out of child welfare institutions or are released from prison.
• There is a lack of services in child welfare institutions for children and young people who commit or are at risk of committing criminal offences.
• Cross-sectoral collaboration has been established for vulnerable children and young people, but there is still work to be done to ensure that this leads to improvements.