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CRIME

‘Alarm bells should ring’: New study sheds light on problems in Sweden’s vulnerable areas

One in 18 of Sweden's residents lives in a so-called vulnerable area, where criminality is higher than average and trust in authorities lower. A new study reveals how political priorities differ in these neighbourhoods compared to the general population.

Published: 7 July 2020 17:23 CEST
'Alarm bells should ring': New study sheds light on problems in Sweden's vulnerable areas
People attend the Järvaveckan political week in 2019, one holding a pamphlet with the slogan 'Who cares'. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

In general, people in these areas said there have been positive developments in police work over the past five years, but negative trends in criminality. And their trust in Swedish media, politicians, and local authorities was much lower than for the Swedish population as a whole.

In the report, carried out by Novus on behalf of The Global Village Foundation, residents of 60 socioeconomically vulnerable areas were asked about how things had developed in these areas, and their relationship with different Swedish authorities.

Almost half (46 percent) thought that over the past five years things had got worse when it came to crime.

People in these areas were significantly more likely than the general population to have personal experience of crime.

Three times as many respondents had experienced or knew someone who had experienced a shooting (17 percent), twice as many knew someone who had been affected by religious radicalisation (13 percent) and twice as many for so-called honour violence (6 percent). 

Looking only at the figures for young men from vulnerable areas, these figures were even higher: 43 percent had witnessed or knew someone who had witnessed drug selling, and the equivalent figures were 21 percent for shootings, 30 percent for assault and 17 percent for radicalisation.

Skäggetorp in Linköping is one of the 60 areas. Photo: Jeppe Gustafsson / TT

People in vulnerable areas were also exposed to discrimination to a higher extent: 36 percent personally knew someone who had experienced discrimination, compared to 27 percent in the general population. Among young adults (18-29 years), 45 percent had personally experienced or know someone who had been discriminated against.

One promising finding was that over half (53 percent) of those surveyed said that police development was moving in the right direction over the past five years. That figure was almost twice as high as for the general population, only 24 percent of whom thought police work had improved.

In recent years, police and other emergency services have worked hard to build trust in these neighbourhoods. Part of this is simply identifying the socioeconomically areas, which have been categorised since 2015 – although some local authorities have called for the list not to be made public due to the stigma associated with the label.

Police have also focused on working closely with local communities including through school visits and supporting local business owners. 

In vulnerable areas, residents said they believed the top three political issues for Sweden were healthcare, immigration, and schools, and that the top issues for their neighbourhood were law and order, schools, and integration.

Those are more or less the same top issues as for the Swedish population as a whole, with one important difference: integration was a higher priority for those in vulnerable areas.

Among the general population, the top issues for Sweden were reported as healthcare, immigration, and the labour market, and within their own neighbourhood schools, law and order, and immigration.

There were also key differences in levels of trust for different institutions.

Almost two thirds (64 percent) had high trust in police, compared to 41 percent trust for the Swedish media and just 47 percent trust in the government. And nearly two thirds of those surveyed said that there was too great a distance between Swedish politicians and ordinary citizens.

This was backed up by the fact that only 26 percent of those surveyed said they personally knew a politician, compared to 45 percent of people living in Sweden as a whole. Respondents were significantly more likely to answer 'yes' to that question if they had a high level of education or were born in Sweden.

Fittja in southern Stockholm. Photo: Tomas Oneborg/SvD/TT

People in vulnerable areas were also less likely to know a CEO (32 percent compared to 61 percent of the general population, and 28 percent for 18-29-year olds in vulnerable areas compared to 41 percent of the same age group in the general population).

“When young people are more likely to witness criminal acts than running into a politician or CEO, alarms should ring loudly. We need to address these issues if we want to secure the future of our democracy and have a socially sustainable development,” said the Global Village Foundation's director Ahmed Abdirahman.

He said that he hoped more politicians and CEOs would participate in Järvaveckan 2021 – a week-long political festival held in the suburbs, which attracts representatives from Sweden's major parties. 

“We need to understand the importance of role models and diversity. My recommendation to government agencies, politicians and the business sector is to recruit diverse and to engage these communities – it’s not just about trust in agencies, it’s about trust in democracy and has long term consequences. People have to recognise themselves, it's very important to have diversity in a democracy and society,” Abdirahman explained.

“Trust is low in many different government agencies and in the government itself compared to the general population, but one area that sticks out is trust for nonprofit organisations – that's much higher than among the general population.

“Sweden is a country where education is free and so on, but it's not about the beautiful words in the constitution, it's about how we enact those values and whether the opportunities are there in practice,” he explained. “I believe and hope they want to improve relationships, but I want to see it happening.”

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POLICE

Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

A new report in Dagens Nyheter has revealed over 514 suspected leaks of sensitive information from at least 30 members of the police force to criminals since 2018. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 30 April 2024 12:28 CEST
Updated: 30 April 2024 15:45 CEST
Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

What’s happened?

According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

The first article in DN’s series focuses on a woman the newspaper calls Elin, who met a man, Jonas (not his real name), on a dating app when she had one year left of her police education. She falls in love, but his only goal with the relationship is to get a source within the police force which he can use for access to secret information.

Over the course of four years until she was caught, she made multiple illegal searches in the police register for Jonas, his associates and enemies, as well as providing him with information on ongoing investigations against him.

Other cases investigated by the newspaper include a border guard who sold classified information to gangs, a police officer who leaked information to what DN describes as “one of Sweden’s most notorious criminals” and an investigator who was dating a man she was investigating, who she shared screenshots of sensitive information with.

In another case, the police received a tip-off that information was being leaked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It was discovered that a group of five alarm operators had made an unusually high number of searches for members of the Hells Angels, who were later discovered to have connections with the gang that they had lied about during their background checks.

What have the consequences of these leaks been?

In some cases, the leaks preceded revenge attacks on enemies of the gang member involved in the relationship. In other cases, the gang members’ enemies disappeared or were murdered.

Some of the people from the police force involved in the leaks were sentenced to fines for illegal data access or breaches of professional secrecy, while the evidence against others was not sufficient to prosecute. 

At least 30 employees had for different reasons been considered “security risks” and either resigned or were forced to quit, the newspaper reported, with over 514 suspected leaks taking place from police to criminals since 2018.

How do criminals find police officers?

According to DN, they look for things that can be used as blackmail, like police officers who buy drugs, or set “honey traps”, like the one used against Elin, where they meet police officers or students on dating apps and start a relationship.

“You take Tinder, for example, and set your search radius so the police school is in the centre. When you get a match, it’s easy to check if it’s a student, through class lists or how they present themselves on social media. They’re proud of their line of work,” Jonas told DN.

They might also use their family connections to put pressure on relatives who work in the police force.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Sweden has seen a rise in gang-related violence in recent years, with a surge in shootings and bombings as gangs fight for control over different drug markets.

Swedes also have a high level of trust in the police force – 72 percent according to a 2024 study by Medieakademin, topping the list of state authorities, with a higher level of trust than universities, healthcare, the courts and even the Swedish church. This was five percent higher than in 2023.

Although the vast majority of police officers do not leak information to criminal networks, Sweden does not have a history of organised crime infiltrating the police force, so officials are keeping a close eye on these leaks to make sure they don’t become more common.

On April 29th, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told TT newswire that the leaks were “very serious”, potentially putting trust in the police force at risk.

“There are many great risks and one is that trust in police declines, that people get the idea that mafia-like methods are used to infiltrate law enforcement,” he said, before adding that he was unable to say whether it constituted a threat to national security or not purely based on the initial DN article.

“But the mere suspicion of these types of connections are damaging,” he told the newswire.

What happens now?

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told DN that he planned to call a meeting with police leadership about the reports, which he described as “extremely serious”.

“[At that meeting] we will consider the need for further measures,” he said.

“Leaking sensitive information to criminals is against the law and can have very damaging consequences for the work of the police force,” Strömmer told DN, adding that it could undermine trust in the police and “damage democracy”.

Last summer, the government increased the penalty for breaching professional secrecy, and a special investigator was tasked with looking at a potential reform of the rules on corruption and professional misconduct in February – the Crime Prevention Council is also involved in that investigation, where it has been asked to provide information on how gangs use government employees.

“Protecting the integrity of the justice system against infiltration and other security threats is a central part of the new national strategy against organised crime that the government decided on earlier this year, and it is given the highest priority in our assignments to the authorities,” Strömmer told the newspaper.

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