Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MALMÖ

Sweden’s Justice Minister survives no-confidence motion

Sweden's Justice Minister Morgan Johansson has survived a no-confidence motion proposed by the populist Sweden Democrats over his handling of gang crime.

Published: 15 November 2019 09:57 CET
Sweden's Justice Minister survives no-confidence motion
Sweden's Justice Minister Morgan Johansson has come under pressure under crime. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT
“It's been an own-goal from the moment it was proposed,” Johansson said after the vote on Friday morning. “The right-wing nationalist bloc has revealed itself and it's clear that it isn't the Moderate Party any more in the lead.”   
 
The far-right Sweden Democrats had argued that Johansson should stand down over his failure to bring an end to high-profile shootings and explosions in Sweden, and had won the backing of both the Moderate and the Christian Democrats for its proposal. 
 
Ulf Kristersson, the Moderate Party's leader, told the Expressen newspaper ahead of the motion that he believed it was right to hold Johansson responsible for recent shootings. 
 
“It is right to now put forward a no-confidence motion against the Justice Minister,” he said. “He is ultimately responsible for this completely unsustainable situation we have in Sweden right now. He should either do his job or accept the consequences and resign.” 
 
The parties pushing for the no confidence motion could only muster 151 votes, 23 short of the 174 needed to win a no-confidence motion, after the Liberal and Centre parties sided with Sweden's red-green coalition government. 
 
However, winning the backing of the two other right-wing parties marks a significant step forward for Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, whose strategic aim is to combine forces with them to form a new conservative parliamentary bloc. 
 
Janine Alm Ericson, from the Green Party, the junior partner in Sweden's ruling coalition, accused the three parties of abusing the system of no-confidence motions for a political stunt.  “It's obvious that this instrument is being used frivolously by the conservative opposition,” she said. 
 
Anders W. Jonsson from the Centre Party said that he was against the use of no-confidence motions to “express general dissatisfaction”, claiming they should be reserved for only the most serious ministerial failures. 
 
Sweden's government has come under increasing pressure over crime this week after a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot in a pizza restaurant in Malmö at 9pm on Friday night last week. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

SHOOTINGS

US criminologist lauds Malmö for anti-gang success

The US criminologist behind the anti-gang strategy designed to reduce the number of shootings and explosions in Malmö has credited the city and its police for the "utterly pragmatic, very professional, very focused" way they have put his ideas into practice.

Published: 8 March 2021 16:12 CET
US criminologist lauds Malmö for anti-gang success
Johan Nilsson/TT

In an online seminar with Malmö mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said implementing his Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy had gone extremely smoothly in the city.

“What really stands out about the Malmö experience is contrary to most of the places we work,” he said. “They made their own assessment of their situation on the ground, they looked at the intervention logic, they decided it made sense, and then, in a very rapid, focused and business-like fashion, they figured out how to do the work.”

He said that this contrasted with police and other authorities in most cities who attempt to implement the strategy, who tend to end up “dragging their feet”, “having huge amounts of political infighting”, and coming up with reasons why their city is too different from other cities where the strategy has been a success.

Malmö’s Sluta Skjut (Stop Shooting) pilot scheme was extended to a three-year programme this January, after its launch in 2018 coincided with a reduction in the number of shootings and explosions in the city.

“We think it’s a good medicine for Malmö for breaking the negative trend that we had,” Malmö police chief Stefan Sintéus said, pointing to the fall from 65 shootings in 2017 to 20 in 2020, and in explosions from 62 in 2017 to 17 in 2020.

A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of shootings from 2017 to 2020. Graph: Malmö Police
A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of explosions in the city between 2017 and 2020. Graph: Malmö Police

READ ALSO: 

In their second evaluation of the programme, published last month, Anna-Karin Ivert, Caroline Mellgren, and Karin Svanberg, three criminologists from Malmö University, reported that violent crime had declined significantly since the program came into force, and said that it was possible that the Sluta Skjut program was partly responsible, although it was difficult to judge exactly to what extent. 

The number of shootings had already started to decline before the scheme was launched, and in November 2019, Sweden’s national police launched Operation Rimfrost, a six-month crackdown on gang crime, which saw Malmö police reinforced by officers from across Sweden.

But Kennedy said he had “very little sympathy” for criminologists critical of the police’s decision to launch such a massive operation at the same time as Sluta Skjut, making it near impossible to evaluate the programme.

“Evaluation is there to improve public policy, public policy is not there to provide the basis for for sophisticated evaluation methodology,” he argued.

“When people with jobs to do, feel that they need to do things in the name of public safety, they should follow their professional, legal and moral judgement. Not doing something to save lives, because it’s going to create evaluation issues, I think, is simply privileging social science in a way that it doesn’t deserve.”

US criminologist David Kennedy partaking in the meeting. Photo: Richard Orange

Sluta Skjut has been based around so-called ‘call-ins’, in which known gang members on probation are asked to attend meetings, where law enforcement officials warn them that if shootings and explosions continue, they and the groups around them will be subject to intense focus from police.

At the same time, social workers and other actors in civil society offer help in leaving gang life.

Of the 250-300 young men who have been involved in the project, about 40 have been sent to prison, while 49 have joined Malmö’s ‘defector’ programme, which helps individuals leave gangs.

Kennedy warned not to focus too much on the number of those involved in the scheme who start to work with social services on leaving gang life.

“What we find in in practice is that most of the impact of this approach doesn’t come either because people go to prison or because they take services and leave gang life,” he said.

“Most of the impact comes from people simply putting their guns down and no longer being violent.”

“We think of the options as continuing to be extremely dangerous, or completely turning one’s life around. That’s not realistic in practice. Most of us don’t change that dramatically ever in our lives.”

He stressed the importance of informal social control in his method, reaching those who gang members love and respect, and encouraging them to put pressure on gang members to abstain from gun violence.

“We all care more about our mothers than we care about the police, and it turns out that if you can find the guy that this very high risk, very dangerous person respects – literally, you know, little old ladies will go up to him and get his attention and tell him to behave himself. And he will.”

SHOW COMMENTS