We used to believe in Sweden that the rights and well-being of children should always come first. But over the past two decades, a surge in gang violence has shaken that commitment. In 2023, 363 shootings took the lives of 53 people; this year, over 100 bombings stemming from gang violence had already been recorded by November. Our country now has one of the highest per capita rates of gun violence in the European Union. One key factor in the phenomenon: Gangs are grooming and recruiting children as young as 11, the police say, as contract killers.
A basic tenet of the country’s juvenile justice system was that long prison sentences hurt both children and our society. Until recently, young people who committed crimes were likely to be placed in residential homes, where they received treatment for addiction and mental health disorders. Imprisonment was extremely rare. Offenders ages 18 to 21 often received sentence reductions, known as “youth rebates,” and were also placed in treatment homes.
As crime among young people rises, though, the government has moved to toughen sentences for these offenders and eliminate most youth rebates. As a result, two teenage boys were ordered to serve 10 and 12 years in prison in August — the longest sentence Sweden has given to such young people in modern history — after being convicted in connection with a shooting spree that left three dead and injured two others, including a 2-year-old child.
Politicians have laid the blame for the gang violence on Sweden’s generous refugee policies, and the country has moved to tighten its borders. Some on the far right argue that aggressive repatriation of foreigners, particularly Muslims, is the only solution. And in the aftermath of a deadly shooting this past spring, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson denounced “a kind of inhumane, an animalistic attitude” among the group of youths said to have committed the crime.
What’s generally lost in that conversation is that Sweden has become the worst in its commitment to reducing economic disparity among the Nordic countries. Drug trafficking and organized crime exist all around the country, but the new wave of violence and crime first took root in neighborhoods where residents are more likely to be unemployed and are at a higher risk of poverty on the outskirts of our cities, which have high concentrations of immigrants. Segregation and institutional racism is feeding a sense of hopelessness that is driving some children and teenagers to join gangs.
The violence is most certainly horrific, but we must not lose sight of our obligation to protect the well-being of children who are accused of a crime, including under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The dehumanizing language used by Sweden’s politicians is reminiscent of the “superpredator” myth popularized by American politicians and media in the 1990s. That theory, now debunked, argued that young gang members — emerging amid child poverty and drug addiction — were a new, irredeemable breed with no morals or empathy.
Most U.S. states responded with a slew of policies that resulted in children tried as adults, and even sentenced to life without parole. In the years since, not only has the anticipated level of violence not materialized, but there is also a growing consensus that these policies caused profound harm.
Sweden increasingly appears to be looking to the U.S. model in its effort to curb gang violence. But Stefan Holgersson, a police officer and associate professor at Linköping University, explained that aggressive tactics like indiscriminate stop-and-frisk can erode trust in marginalized communities, adding that they “risk pushing children toward gangs rather than away from them.”
We know that tough-on-crime policies and building more prisons have been tried repeatedly elsewhere and have failed. Mr. Holgersson emphasized that the police need to be given more resources to work closely with troubled communities to improve public safety, build trust and gather information.
Over the past decade, Sweden’s prisons have participated in exchanges with correctional departments in the United States. In Pennsylvania, a prison opened an experimental “Little Scandinavia” unit modeled after Swedish prisons such as Kumla, about 130 miles west of Stockholm; it housed residents in single cells and used a nonconfrontational approach to behavior management.
And while the United States is adopting some Swedish practices, Sweden seems to taking steps toward mass incarceration. Jacques Mwepu, the warden of the Kumla prison, explained that these days, with the prison population swelling with young offenders, sharing cells has become more common, which is raising tensions among residents.
After decades of reporting on gang violence and juvenile justice around the world, I find it disappointing to watch my country abandon rights-based and restorative juvenile justice because of fear mongering and populism. What we need instead of tougher sentencing rules are measures to stop young people from killing one another on our streets.
This includes addressing the crisis in a juvenile justice system that isn’t equipped to handle the number of rising children charged with crimes, and supporting programs for all those wishing to leave gangs. Young offenders who commit serious crimes should be housed in secure facilities where they can receive care for trauma and post-traumatic stress.
Long-term solutions must include efforts to reduce childhood poverty, address educational inequality and eliminate segregation and discrimination. Early intervention with equal access to treatment for mental health and neuropsychiatric disorders is also key.
In the spring, we visited a slim young man in a residential home north of Uppsala, who was recruited as a runner by older gang members at age 11. (Swedish regulations forbid revealing the names of incarcerated people.)
Over the years, he has bounced around residential homes because of concerns he might harm himself and drug use. Unfortunately, many of these homes for younger children have an open-door policy, which made it easy for him to meet other gang members and buy and sell drugs.
“Hang with good people, you’ll do good. Hang with dirt, you become dirt,” he said. At 20, he was a war-weary veteran, tired of friends dying, mothers crying and the stress that comes with facing death threats.
“Politicians are desperate, but if you lock one of us up, another will come along,” he said. “Help when they are kids. Before they become criminals. Before they get in too deep.”
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