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CRIME

Police call for tougher gun crime penalties

Police in Skåne in southern Sweden want to see tougher penalties for gun crimes in hopes of cutting down on the number of shootings in the region.

Published: 21 October 2010 09:10 CEST
Police call for tougher gun crime penalties
Guns confiscated in a 2008 raid outside of Stockholm

“It’s unacceptable that people who are found with loaded weapons are released again after only one or two days,” Per Lidehäll of the Skåne County police told the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper.

In 2010 alone, there have been more than 50 reported shootings in Malmö. The town remains on edge following an announcement by police on Wednesday that a single gunman may be responsible for up to 15 shootings targeting people with immigrant backgrounds.

On Wednesday night police confirmed that the same weapon had been used in several of the shootings.

“We’re looking at a handgun, either a pistol of a revolver. If we find the gun in question, we’ll have made a huge breakthrough. Now we have something concrete that shows that the shootings are related,” Börje Sjöholm of the Skåne County police told the TT news agency.

While Sjöholm confirmed the same weapon was used in several of the shootings, he refused to say exactly how many of the victims may have been shot with the same gun.

According to Lidehäll, there are “too many” guns on the streets in Malmö, with many having been smuggled in over the Öresund Bridge or simply procured illicitly over the internet.

Police hope that updating legislation may help address the problem. They argue that current laws don’t reflect the realities of contemporary society. Whereas weapons seizures were a rare and noteworthy event years ago, today finding and confiscating guns is nothing out of the ordinary.

Currently, illegal firearm possession carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison, while those convicted of aggravated gun crimes in Sweden are sentenced to between six months and four years in prison.

Weapons offences deemed to be minor, however, may result in fines or a maximum of six months in prison.

“It doesn’t help to stop and bother people who walk around with weapons of there isn’t a severe punishment,” J-B Cederholm with the county police told the newspaper.

Cederholm added he is also concerned that guns are ending up in the hands of young people, explaining that even children have been caught roaming the streets with loaded weapons.

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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