Police officers rarely convicted of violence and abuse of power

Police at work.Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix

Since 2016, the police have been charged 174 times for violence and abuse of power. Only two things ended with convictions, which is inexcusably low, said a lawyer.

 

The figures are given in Aftenposten newspaper, which has been collected from the Bureau of Police Affairs. Two conviction judgments out of 174 cases correspond to a 1.15% conviction rate.

The leader of the Defence Group, lawyer Marius Dietrichson, reacted to the figures.

‘’The prerequisite for the trust of the police is that any abuses of power are  pursued.That abuse and violence has resulted in a criminal prosecutions in 1% of cases is surprisingly low. It can’t be easy to write off 99% of the reviews,”said Dietrichson.

According to the Bureau, the police were reported a total of 1,003 times last year.

41 of the cases ended with a preliminary ruling, or prosecution. This corresponded to 4%.

Dietrichson said the reaction rate in cases against ordinary people is about 50%, and said that “it makes you a fool”. The head of the Bureau, Jan Egil Presthus, thinks the two sets of figures are not comparable.

“We must remember that the Special Unit’s task is to determine whether there is a basis for criminal liability, not whether the police have acted wisely or whether a mission should have been resolved differently. There is a lot to do in order for the service to be so abusive that it leads to punishment,” said Presthus.

 

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today