Europe

Sweden says stamping out gangs ‘will take a decade’

Gun and bomb attacks have pushed rate of fatal shootings from one of Europe’s lowest to the highest

Sweden's justice minister Gunnar Strömmer has said gangs are hiring out criminals, especially children, to work for groups in other countries. /AFP via Getty Images)
Richard Milne in Stockholm
Tue Sept 10 2024 - 12:16

Sweden’s justice minister has warned that stamping out the country’s violent crime epidemic will take a decade or more, with immigrant drug gangs infiltrating courts, the police and prisons.

Gunnar Strömmer told the Financial Times that the gangs behind the deadly shootings were hiring out criminals, especially children, to work for groups in other countries. According to Swedish intelligence reports, those groups include violent extremists and even some state actors, such as Iran.

Criminologists have said the problems behind the crime wave, which has included grenade and bomb attacks, are so deep-rooted that it will take at least a decade to ensure that children of kindergarten age today do not commit crimes when they become teenagers.

“That is a very realistic view on the time perspective,” said Mr Strömmer.

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He added: “The problems are certainly very serious, and it will take time to persistently reverse the trend, not the least regarding children.”

A spate of gun and bomb attacks between drug gangs has pushed the Scandinavian country’s rate of fatal shootings from one of Europe’s lowest to the highest in just a decade.

After more than a decade of liberal immigration policies by successive right- and left-wing governments, the current conservative government took power in 2022 promising a crackdown on gangs.

The number of deadly shootings has fallen somewhat, from a peak of 62 in 2022 in the nation of 10.6 million people to 54 last year and 31 so far in 2024.

Mr Strömmer said the systematic threat from gangs went beyond individual acts. “Their use of violence threatens the security and freedom of the general public, they threaten civil servants working for our social agencies, they try to infiltrate the courts, the police, our prisons.”

The perpetrators of the shootings are as young as 13, owing to the lenient sentences handed out to under-18s.

Mr Strömmer said the government was toughening punishment for youths, including sentencing them to prison and enforcing more jail time, after statistics showed that more than 90 per cent of teenagers connected to gangs who are convicted to youth detention go on to reoffend.

He added that it was also taking measures on the social prevention side, such as allowing schools, law enforcement, and social services to share information, which could help combat economic crime and help troubled young people.

“Sweden neglected crime and segregation for many years ... The measures that we’ve put in clearly have a positive effect. At the same time, there’s a constant risk of spirals of new violence bubbling under the surface,” the minister said.

He added that criminals were “constantly developing their abilities”, pointing to the digital infrastructure they had developed to recruit youth criminals that they then shared with foreign gangs.

Police say Swedish gangs use economic fraud and ownership of parts of the welfare system such as private care homes and homes for troubled youth to finance their activities as well as recruit young people.

“They sort of infiltrate or use the legal side of the economy to get on the inside of our welfare state,” Sweden’s justice minister added.

Peter Hummelgaard, Denmark’s justice minister, has criticised Sweden’s “totally sick, depraved culture of violence”, saying there had been 25 incidents where Swedish teenagers had been hired for hits by Danish gangs.

“It’s terrifying in every way and it makes me angry,” saidMr Hummelgaard last month. “Really, really angry.”

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024