Group-based Crime Among Young People
October 1, 2026, 12:30 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Understanding youth violence and crime – topics that have been at the forefront of public discourse in recent years – requires social scientific research that is both theoretically and methodologically diverse. In this seminar, we combine youth research with criminological control and criminal behavior research to jointly create a more multifaceted understanding of youth crime. A specific goal of the seminar is to deepen our shared understanding of the communal and cultural factors and multiple effects of control, underlying group-based youth crime, while considering young people’s own experiences. Group processes have largely been overlooked in national and international research on youth crime and gangs. At the same time, the seminar aims to strengthen the dialogue between youth studies and criminology. Both disciplines have strong roots in early 20th-century American urban and gang research, but dialogue and joint research projects have been scarce, particularly over the past decade in Finland.
Keynote lecturers
The keynote lecturer Thomas Friis Søgaard is PhD and Associate Professor at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark. Thomas is mainly a qualitative researcher but has also conducted quantitative research on drug-related issues. His research interests include drug markets, drug policy and young people. He has published widely on these issues, including a forthcoming special issue on digital-physical hybridity in drug markets.
The second keynote speaker of the seminar is senior researcher Antti Kivijärvi. He has studied issues related to youth and young people for twenty years. In addition to crime and violence, Kivijärvi’s research interests have included youth leisure, ethnicity, gender and youth services.
The seminar will more shortly feature current significant and diverse research to discuss the nature of group-based youth crime, the factors that may underline this phenomenon, and how it can be reduced multidimensionally. The seminar is linked to the Y-GANG consortium project, a joint initiative of the Finnish Youth Research Society, the University of Turku, and the University of Helsinki, funded by the Academy of Finland, which investigates youth groups, group-based crime in urban settings as well as the control mechanisms applied to these groups. The seminar is organized by the Finnish Youth Research Society in collaboration with the Finnish Society of Criminology. The seminar will be conducted in English.
Program
12.30 Welcoming words
Research Professor Sofia Laine, the Finnish Youth Research Society and University Lecturer Elsa Saarikkomäki, University of Turku
12.40 Keynote: Young people’s involvement in organized drug crime: What is the problem represented to be in different European spaces?
Associate Professor Thomas Friis Søgaard, Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
Abstract: The European drug landscape is rapidly changing, which has recently led to increased policy concerns with the problem of youth involvement in organized drug crime. Based on a six-nation comparative study, and informed by critical policy analysis, this presentation demonstrates how varying and competing policy problem-framings, across European spaces, have implications for how the issue of youth involvement in drug markets, is addressed and managed. More specifically, I discuss how addressing the issue of youth involvement as respectively an ‘exploitation problem’, a ‘recruitment and prevention problem’ and a ‘service and youth culture problem’ have implications for youth victimhood recognition and for safeguarding responses. Finally, I draw on findings from a qualitative research project in Denmark to provide insights into how youth inclusion in organized drug crime unfolds in practice, and to discuss how practical realities correspond with policy understandings of the problem.
13.40 Second keynote: Communal dimensions of youth violence in the 2020s
Senior researcher Antti Kivijärvi, the Finnish Youth Research Society
Abstract: Once again, youth violence in Finland has been the subject of intense public debate in recent years. On the one hand, the discussion has focused on fluctuations in crime rates. On the other hand, attention has been drawn to alleged new features of youth violence, such as roadman culture, street gangs, and connections to professional criminal networks. The main contributors to the debate have been police officials, journalists, and politicians, while research-based evidence has remained scarce. In this lecture, the communal dimensions of youth violence in the 2020s will be examined through both court cases and ethnographic data. What kinds of youth cultures, social groupings, and aspirations can be identified behind acts of violence committed by young people? Since the days of the Chicago School in the 1920s, criminologists and youth researchers have recognized that communal dimensions, including group relations, peer cultures, and local neighborhoods, are key factors in understanding deviant behavior of young people. This lecture contributes to that scholarly tradition through a multi-method research design.
14.10 Coffee break (20 min)
14.30
Doctoral Researcher Kaisla Saartenoja, University of Helsinki: Crime by Proxy and Youth Co-Offending: Insights from Finnish Register and Survey Data
14.50
PhD Jussi Perälä, the Finnish Youth Research Society & PhD Helena Huhta, the Finnish Youth Research Society & University of Helsinki: Stretching the concept of organized crime – creating new suitable enemies
15.10
Professor Mikko Aaltonen, Law School, University of Eastern Finland: Adverse childhood experiences and patterns of violence among youth
15.30
Academy Research Fellow Lotta Junnilainen, University of Helsinki: Street gang – The iconic urban other
15.50 Closing Words
University Lecturer Elsa Saarikkomäki, University of Turku and Research Professor Sofia Laine, the Finnish Youth Research Society
