The purpose of this essay was to study social workers´ and polices contributions with criminal youth gangs and get an insight in how co-operation in the contributions between these governments comes to rank and works.

To find out, we carried out a study with a qualitative design based on document studies and interviews with social workers´ and polices who were meeting youths in their work.

Our findings were that it's hard to define a criminal youth gang. The social workers´ and polices have both individual and common contributions with criminal youth gangs. One of their most important lining is to prevent new recruitment of young people to criminality. The social workers´ and polices both have an intention to cooperate but they can’t agree about the method of work they shall use, “the kid-glove or the whip”.