Crime remains the most important issue for Swedish voters, according to a new poll. Meanwhile, environment, climate and energy have dropped in priority by almost 10% between March and August this year.
Immigration and integration are tied for second place as the most important societal issues, according to a Dagens Nyheter/Ipsos survey, and have risen steadily from 15 to 20% between March and August.
At the top of the list is crime, which nearly one in four voters consider to be one of the most important social issues in Sweden.
The survey was conducted between August 15 and 27 through interviews with 1,291 eligible voters who were asked, “Which social or political issue is most important to you today?” Respondents were then able to name up to three areas they considered most important.
Health care and education tied for second place, with one in five Swedes believing these issues to be among the most important.
The importance of the environment, climate and energy has declined among voters over the period. In March the priority was on a par with crime, but by August it had fallen from 26% to 17%.
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In many cases, offenders are young, under the influence of drugs and do not know their victims - and there is a high risk of selecting the "wrong" target.
It has often been claimed that the victims of criminal gang violence are almost always involved in organized crime themselves. But according to the Swedish police, that picture is now wrong.
Since the beginning of 2023 alone, at least 60 outsiders have been killed or injured in shootings and explosions linked to criminal networks
– This is an effect of the high level of conflict, which has been the case for a number of years. We believe it will continue to be high, August Knutsson, operational coordinator at the police’s national operations center, told Swedish Radio.
According to police figures, 22 outsiders have been killed and another 38 injured in gang-related attacks over the past two and a half years.
In some cases, the violence has been directed against relatives of known criminals – such as relatives or girlfriends – but there are also cases where the wrong person is killed by mistake, or someone is injured simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In 2023 in particular, the number of external victims increased sharply, and although the trend seems to have slowed down somewhat, police have already recorded at least six cases in 2025.
Young people and drug addicts
According to the police, a key explanation for the increase in the number of innocent victims is that the killings and blasts are largely carried out by very young people – often with no previous experience, and sometimes brought in from other cities.
The young perpetrators have no relationship with their victims and often act on vague instructions. In many cases, they have only seen a picture of the target or an address, which increases the risk of misidentification and attacks against the wrong people.
– This is an effect of the fact that many of the perpetrators of these crimes are not part of the conflict itself. Many are young perpetrators who take on different missions. Often under the influence of drugs, with little local knowledge and no individual knowledge, states August Knutsson.
– They’re given a task to carry out, and that results in a high risk of shooting or bombing the wrong target.
“In the past, you did not go to relatives”
One of the more high-profile cases occurred at the end of April this year, when a mother and her young daughter were seriously injured in an explosion at their home. According to prosecutor Daniel Insulander, the attack was aimed at the wrong person.
– They are innocent. In the past, you did not go after relatives or girlfriends. It was very rare that innocent people became victims of something like this.
– Storming into a place and shooting wildly, throwing explosives inside, or trying to burn down a house where innocent people are present – this has become much more common now than just five years ago, he says.
A bun-baking grandmother in Norrbotten has been sentenced to prison by the Court of Appeal for selling homemade buns without a permit. While the court takes her unauthorized baked goods seriously, many are questioning whether Swedish courts have time to knead such trivial matters.
A 65-year-old woman in Norrbotten has been sentenced to six weeks in prison for selling buns, bread, and sandwich cakes via Facebook without a registered food business, according to a ruling from the Court of Appeal for Northern Norrland, reports Bonnier-owned Expressen.
The municipality had prohibited the sales and issued fines totaling SEK 130,000 (€12,000), which the woman, living on a pensioner’s income, could not pay. The fine was therefore converted into a prison sentence – a penalty her lawyer calls “unreasonable”.
For several years, the woman has been running the business and engaging many customers on social media by posting pictures of her baked goods and her grandchildren.
Jojo, det går bra att ta i med hårdhandskarna när det inte är något våldskapital hos motparten. Bra signal till medborgarna så att ingen ska tro att den systemhotande kriminaliteten kommer att angripas.
Translation of above tweet: “Yes, it’s okay to use heavy-handed tactics when the other side isn’t violent. It sends a good signal to citizens that no one should think that crimes that threaten the system will go unpunished“.
Appealed to the Supreme Court
Attorney Frida Larsson stresses that the woman considered baking a hobby, often giving away buns to her grandchildren and charging only a minimal amount to cover ingredient costs.
Nonetheless, the Court of Appeal chose to swiftly impose a prison sentence, despite her health issues and financial hardship.
– She is deeply distressed and does not understand how she will endure a prison term given her deteriorating health and age. This has taken a heavy toll on her, Larsson says.
The ruling has sparked public outrage and is being appealed to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the question remains: Is prison truly the right recipe for justice in this case?
Criminal networks are now placing young people in selected schools to maintain control over drug trafficking and territories. The Swedish government says it has called a crisis meeting with three authorities to counter this development.
Several schools in metropolitan areas have become hubs for the gangs’ strategic exercise of power, according to a report by the state broadcaster SVT’s Uppdrag granskning.
By influencing school choice, the networks place young people with links to criminal circles in specific educational environments – a way of ensuring continued drug sales and keeping an eye on rivals.
School administrators and teachers have sounded the alarm about how young people are being distributed among schools according to the wishes of gang criminal networks.
According to reports, groups divide cities among themselves in order to avoid conflicts and secure the market.
– From what I experience, they’re told from above to choose schools so they can maintain power, their territory or control over a specific school, says an anonymous school host.
Dystopiskt nytt avsnitt av uppdrag granskning.
Gängkriminella bestämmer vilka skolor elever ska gå i för att deras nätverk ska behålla kontroll över området.
Skolan används sedan för att sälja narkotika, förvara vapen och rekrytera unga. pic.twitter.com/AtEc9JNss1
Planning for school choice often takes place outside the school grounds, where older criminals meet younger ones. The choice of upper secondary school becomes part of the gang’s long-term strategy to keep sales channels open during the three years the students are studying.
At the same time, some students store weapons and drugs on school premises, and in some cases the school is used as a recruitment base for violent assignments. Police and school staff report a worrying increase in such cases.
– If we talk about an area where I have many enemies, where I know I’ve hurt people, if they go to a school there, I definitely don’t want to start at that school. Because they’ll come after me, says gang member “Hassan”.
“Hassan”, whose real name is something else, is in his last year of high school and has ties to criminal networks. For him and other students in similar environments, the choice of school determines their safety.
Photo: facsimile/Hem&hyra/Youtube
A tenfold increase
Statistics from the Swedish Prosecution Authority show that the number of 15-17-year-olds suspected of murder has increased by over a thousand percent in a decade. During the first quarter of this year, 128 young people were charged in 190 different murder investigations.
Children under the age of 15 have been suspected of 136 cases of murder planning – a threefold increase compared to last year. This development has prompted the government to call in the National Agency for Education, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, and the Police Authority.
The aim is to coordinate efforts and prevent schools from being used as part of the criminal infrastructure.
– School should be a safe place for learning . not an arena where criminal forces gain a foothold. It is completely unacceptable that teachers are intimidated into silence by students with violent tendencies, strategically placed by criminal networks, says Minister of Education Johan Pehrson.
At the same time, the Crime Prevention Council reports that prosecutions of 15-17-year-olds increased by 10% in 2023 compared with the previous year.
However, researchers warn that repressive measures alone are not enough – preventive work and social support measures are highlighted as crucial to breaking the trend.
The Swedish government has announced that more proposals are on the way. The authorities’ feedback is expected in the coming weeks.
Thousands of British girls have been sexually abused, raped or held as sex slaves in recent decades by so-called “grooming gangs”, often led by people of Pakistani origin.
Despite the systematic and widespread nature of the abuse, it was covered up by the British authorities – and the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is held responsible for the cover-up in his former role as Attorney General.
As early as the late 1980s, young vulnerable girls in several towns in the north of England began to be exploited by Pakistani gangs. The girls were drugged with drugs or alcohol and subjected to serious rape.
It has since emerged that the authorities failed to intervene – partly for fear of being accused of “racism”.
– I want to see those responsible held accountable for gross misconduct, former police officer Maggie Oliver told Swedish state broadcaster SVT, which recently released a documentary about the events.
The misconduct led Oliver to resign and instead become one of the most prominent critics of government inaction.
“They stole my childhood”
Oliver is far from alone in his criticism, with foreign commentators such as Trump advisor Elon Musk also drawing attention to the scandal and attacking the UK government.
“They should receive the severest punishment. Hang them for treason”, he wrote in a statement in early January.
Good. They should receive the severest punishment. Hang them for treason.
The fact that Pakistani grooming and pedophile gangs have been able to continue their rampage for decades despite the alerts about the abuses has led to widespread public anger against British politicians and authorities. Many believe that the country’s leaders have blood on their hands and are heavily complicit in the destruction of the girls’ lives.
– The only way to cope was to turn everything off.They stole my childhood, says Elisabeth, who was 14 the first time she was raped.
She says she was held captive in an apartment and raped daily by different men.
– These men destroyed lives, and the authorities helped them do it, she continues.
“A cover-up”
Elisabeth was left in the apartment of the pedophile network despite being a minor, and she is far from alone in suffering from the authorities’ betrayal, with the police failing to act.
– It was a cover-up.They didn’t want it to be known that these kinds of sexual crimes were going on in the country, explains Maggie Oliver.
A fairly typical “British” grooming gang – these particular offenders are from Halifax. Photo: West Yorkshire Police
Many believe that the UK’s highest political leadership bears ultimate responsibility for the failure to stop the pedophile network – with Prime Minister Keir Starmer being singled out for blame in the cover-up scandal.
Mr. Starmer was the former Attorney General and was formally ultimately responsible when a huge number of child sexual abuse cases were ignored or covered up by the authorities.
– There was no one higher up to turn to.So I think he is complicit and knew exactly what was going on and he let it continue to happen.To me, that’s inexcusable, Oliver further argues.
Starmer insists on his innocence
The fact that British establishment politicians have rejected a national investigation into the scandal has further strengthened allegations of a cover-up – with critics seeing the unwillingness to get to the bottom of it as evidence of trying to protect themselves and their friends.
Starmer himself claims to have done nothing wrong, saying instead that he “tackled that problem head on”.
–I reopened cases that had been closed and supposedly finished, I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang, he claims.
Keir Starmer: no inquiry into grooming gangs, everyone calling for one is far-Right, know your place, your betters have spoken. pic.twitter.com/cbFJTbyH31
Others point out that not only have leading politicians acted far too late – but that the problems have still not been addressed, and that British girls are still being systematically abused by foreign gangs.
Rotherham, an English town of just over 100,000 people, is often cited as the prime example of the corruption and incompetence of the authorities. By the early 1990s, abuses were already well known in the town – but despite politicians and police being alerted on numerous occasions, the abuses continued for decades. Despite the city’s small size, it is estimated that at least 1,400 girls were exploited, raped or sold as sex slaves in the city between the late 1980s and 2013.
