In a press release, the party proposed that treating more children in troubled city areas would help prevent gang crime, given that “people with ADHD diagnoses are “significantly over-represented in the country’s jails”. 

The idea is that children in so-called “vulnerable areas”, which in Sweden normally have a high majority of first and second-generation generation immigrants, will be given “simpler, voluntary tests”, which would screen for ADHD, with those suspected of having the neuropsychiatric disorder then put forward for proper evaluations to be given by a child psychiatrist. 

“The quicker you can put in place measures, the better the outcomes,” says Irene Svenonius, the party’s leader in the municipality, of ADHD treatment, claiming that children in Sweden with an immigrant background were less likely to be medicated for ADHD than other children in Sweden. 

In the press release, the party said that there were “significant differences in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD within Stockholm country”, with Swedish-born children receiving diagnosis and treatment to a higher extent, and with ADHD “with the greatest probability” underdiagnosed in vulnerable areas. 

At a press conference, the party’s justice spokesman Johan Forsell, said that identifying children with ADHD in this areas would help fight gang crime. 

“We need to find these children, and that is going to help prevent crime,” he said. 

Sweden’s climate minister Annika Strandhäll accused the Moderates of wanting to “medicate away criminality”. 

Denna valrörelse är på väg att spåra ur..

Moderaterna vill snabbtesta skolklasser i utanförskapsområden för adhd – för att kunna medicinera fler och därmed minska gängkriminaliteten.

Moderaterna vill medicinera bort gängkriminalitet https://t.co/sfZoVuDSLs

— Annika Strandhäll (@strandhall) August 11, 2022

Lotta Häyrynen, editor of the trade union-backed comment site Nya Mitten, pointed out that the Moderates’s claim to want to help children with neuropsychiatric diagnoses in vulnerable areas would be more credible if they had not closed down seven child and youth psychiatry units. 

Istället hade Moderaterna i region Stockholm kunnat låta bli att lägga ned 7 BUP-mottagningar så att personalen larmar om att de aldrig kommer kunna utföra sitt uppdrag nu när avstånden blir längre och bara Järva får ett patientunderlag på 68 000 barn. https://t.co/GyJZ3BEp9W

— Lotta Ilona Häyrynen (@LottaIlonaH) August 11, 2022

The Moderate Party MP and debater Hanif Bali complained about the opposition from left-wing commentators and politicians.

“My spontaneous guess would have been that the Left would have thought it was enormously unjust that three times so many immigrant children are not getting a diagnosis or treatment compared to pure-Swedish children,” he said. “Their hate for the Right is stronger than their care for the children. 

Min spontana gissning hade varit att vänstern skulle tycka att det var en enorm orättvisa att 3ggr så många invandrade barn ej får diagnos och behandling jämfört med pursvenska barn.

Men tjii fick jag.

Deras hat mot högern är starkare än omtanke för barnen. Jag är imponerad.

— Hanif Bali (@hanifbali) August 12, 2022

Swedish vocab: brottsförebyggande – preventative of crime