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Swedes increasingly concerned about crime: survey

Swedes are increasingly worried about crime, and women are more concerned about it than men, according to new figures from the country's National Council on Crime Prevention (Brå).

Published: 16 January 2018 14:23 CET
Swedes increasingly concerned about crime: survey
Swedes are increasingly concerned about crime. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Numbers released by Brå from the forthcoming 2017 edition of the National Crime Survey (NTU) suggest that almost a third of the population (29 percent) are to a large extent worried about crime in Swedish society, an increase compared to 2016 (25 percent) and a return to the same level as the first time the matter was measured in 2006. The level had decreased between 2006 and 2011 before the trend changed.

At the same time confidence in the Swedish legal system has declined, with 55 percent of the population now saying they have high confidence in it, down six percent from 2016. As has confidence in the police (54 percent, down from 61 percent in 2016) and confidence in prosecutors (44 percent, down from 50 percent in 2016).

According to Brå's deputy unit head, public discourse on those matters as well as media reporting are reasonable explanations for the changes.

“Though the study doesn't provide explanations and is rather designed to follow developments of the level of concern about crime, we can still see the changes against the background of other figures showing there is an increased exposure to different crimes. There has also now for a quite long period in Sweden been a debate over safety and crimes in different forms, and discussions about the police capacity to deal with cases. That can have an impact,” Brå's Åsa Strid told The Local.

READ ALSO: Growing number of Swedes are victims of crime

The figures show a gender discrepancy in the level of concern, with women generally more worried than men. More women (23 percent) than men (17 percent) are concerned about break-ins for example (the crime Swedes are most concerned about), and the difference is even greater when it comes to concerns about violence, with 23 percent of women worried about being assaulted compared to nine percent of men.

Brå also measured concerns citizens have about going out late at night in their neighbourhood, and the difference between genders continued: 30 percent of women said they felt very or quite unsafe doing so, or so unsafe that they would choose not to go out, compared to only nine percent of men.

“We've seen that difference since we started doing the studies, that women are more insecure and worried about crime,” Strid noted.

Brå's 2017 National Crime Survey took in the opinions of 11,600 people in Sweden. The full results will be published on January 29th.

Another survey by Brå in November found that 1.2 percent of respondents had been victims of house break-ins and 2.7 percent said they had been victims of assault.

READ ALSO: Swedish police improve rape processing rate, but violent crime slips

CRIME

Tech giants promise ‘action plan’ on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

The tech giants Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok have pledged to give details "within months" on how they will prevent gang leaders in Nordic countries using their products to carry out serious crimes, Denmark's justice minister said on Friday.

Published: 20 September 2024 16:11 CEST
Tech giants promise 'action plan' on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

After meeting the companies along with other Nordic Justice Ministers in Uppsala, Sweden, Hummelgaard and Swedish counterpart Gunnar Strömmer said he now expected the companies to submit an “action plan” to crack down on the use of their apps to recruit young people to carry out shootings and commit other crimes. 

“I would like it to contain concrete steps on how to use the technology on the platforms to remove and screen content that helps to facilitate organised crime to a greater extent,” Hummelgaard said, while Strömmer said that although he was pleased an important step had been taken it “remains to be seen” how seriously the companies take the issue. 

READ ALSO: Danish gangs’ use of Swedish child hitmen is now a diplomatic issue

Ministers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland met to discuss gang crime, which in recent months has increasingly been shown to cross national borders, with criminals from Sweden travelling to Denmark to carry out shootings and hand grenade attacks.

According to Hummelgaard, there have been “many examples” of gangs using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit new criminals, with lists of the payments available for carrying out various criminal services  found circulating  on social media. 

“The way I see it, political patience is about to run out, not just in the Nordic countries, but in large parts of the Western world,” Hummelgaard said.

He said the four companies had made “a really good first step” in pledging to establish a “joint Nordic cooperation forum”, where they would exchange experience and share information with each other about the use of their products in the region for crime. But he said he wanted them to be “more concrete than that”. 

READ ALSO: Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs hiring ‘child soldiers’

Hummelgaard said that he tech giants had also asked that the police authorities in the Nordic countries to provide information on what kind of “groupings and names” are using their services and how “they communicate”, so that the content can “be removed immediately”. 

“I sense that they have a clear desire and will to cooperate with us. I think that is positive,” he said. “I would also like to say that until today this has not been the experience of many of our law enforcement authorities around the Nordic countries.” 

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