The story of Vilson Duarte Dong that we published a few days ago in this newspaper hardly leaves anyone indifferent. Portuguese, born and raised in Almada, son of a Chinese immigrant, he emigrated to England at the age of 12 with his family. The adaptation was tough. Nothing new for many young second-generation immigrants, which is reflected in reality in several European countries. He joined a gang at 14, dealt drugs, was arrested, served time. Then he began a path of personal reconstruction made up of discipline, reading, rehabilitation support and inner work. Today, as part of a foundation linked to a football club, he goes to risky contexts to talk to other young people and try to break cycles of violence. Your journey is an exception, we know, but your example of overcoming reminded me of our reality and the fragility of the paths we offer to many of our young people before they reach the breaking point.
It was impossible to hear his testimony without remembering the Commission for the Integrated Analysis of Juvenile Delinquency and Violent Crime (CAIDJCV)created in 2022, on the initiative of the then Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, and his Secretary of State, Isabel Oneto, after a clear escalation of this phenomenon was identified since 2021. In an interview with Diário de Notícias, Oneto summarized the essentials: “The State’s obligation is to prevent young people from having their life paths marked forever.”
It was with this objective that the commission worked. And the work was serious, demanding and profound. It produced one of the most complete diagnoses ever made on juvenile and group delinquency in Portugal. It identified flaws in the school, in the social response, in guardianship justice, in support for families, in early intervention, in the coordination between services and in the most vulnerable territories. It presented dozens of concrete recommendations, 59 in total. High quality technical work.
Among the commission’s recommendations (expressed in the final and interim reports) are early intervention measures, support for families, reinforcement of social structures in vulnerable areas (nursery schools, for example), school intervention and prevention and community support programs. The final report was delivered in March 2024.
But then… silence ensued.
The XXIV Constitutional Government, led by Luís Montenegro, took office on April 2, 2024 and since then there has been no public evidence of anything regarding the implementation of these recommendations. There was no further meeting of the Commission and, if the Government has another strategy, it is not known either publicly or by the entities and experts who produced the aforementioned work.
We conclude, therefore, that an entire intervention plan that could drastically change the lives and future of an entire generation of young people who, no matter how much we say they always have a choice, is deeply conditioned to it, was thrown into the drawer. And we are not just talking about common crime, there is a whole threat of extremism against young people identified by the authorities, for which public intervention policies fail.
Just last week, at the Second Great Cybersecurity Conference, regarding the use of digital platforms to influence younger people, the national director of the Judiciary Police, Luís Neves, warned of this growth. “It’s manipulation, especially of very young people. They have no idea of the degree of radicalization that is rampant among young people, and beyond, of hatred, death, suffering, terror”, he asserted, looking at the audience.
The CAIDJCV final report precisely highlights the need for “timely intervention”, “strengthening social responses” and “continuous monitoring”, signaling that without these structural measures, it is unlikely that negative trends will be reversed.
However, since 2021, there has been more and more crime committed by young people/children between the ages of 12 and 16. According to official data, in 2021 there were 1,120 participations. In 2022 this number rose to 1687, an abrupt increase of 50.6%. In 2023 they grew again to 1833 occurrences and, in 2024, they reached 2062 cases, 12.5% more than in the previous year.
In just three years, juvenile delinquency nearly doubled. Each increase represents more young people entering a cycle that the country continues to be unable to stop in time. It is therefore unlikely that the line of evolution will not, in 2025, also be ascending, with an increasing expression in metropolitan areas such as Lisbon.
The later we intervene, the heavier the bill becomes: in police resources, in legal proceedings, in prisons, in fear, in social fragmentation. And, above all, in lives that are marked too soon – exactly what the State said it wanted to avoid.
Are we doing everything necessary to not lose these young people? Or do we give up?
The security debate began to revolve almost exclusively around immigration. But we have a deep risk at home. Isn’t the silent erosion of part of our youth a much greater risk?
The commission’s work could not be dependent on electoral cycles. His conclusions required continuity, precisely because the results would never be immediate. Whoever governs inherits problems, but also inherits diagnoses, instruments and paths. And you have a duty to follow up on them. For this, they should also look at the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic.
Vilson is an exception and managed to rehabilitate himself with his own effort and support that arrived at the right time. But a country cannot rely solely on individual stories to solve collective problems. Breaking these cycles requires political courage, investment and long-term vision. And that is a choice that can be made.