A majority of Swedes are concerned about crime in society, according to this year’s National Safety Survey from the Crime Prevention Council (Brå). At the same time, trust in the police has also decreased since last year.
53 percent of Swedes express significant concern about crime, an increase of seven percentage points from last year and the highest ever recorded in Sweden.
74 percent state that they feel safe when going out alone in the evenings, but 26 percent say they feel somewhat, or very, unsafe going out. Of these, five percent avoid going out alone in the evenings entirely. Among men, 18 percent feel unsafe, while the figure among women is 34 percent.
– We do not see any increase in personal feelings of insecurity, such as being afraid to go out in the evening or it affecting one’s movement patterns in other ways. However, a more general concern about crime in society has been increasing for almost 10 years, and the increase from last year is particularly strong, says Sanna Wallin, an investigator at Brå, in a press release.
Furthermore, confidence in the justice system has decreased and is now as low as 49 percent. The most significant drop is in the trust for the police, which has decreased by five percent since last year and now stands at 54 percent.
The survey is based on web and postal questionnaires sent to a sample of 200,000 individuals aged 16–84 years. It has been conducted by Brå since 2006.
