Police issues

Mats Hellhoff (SD)

Madam Speaker! I would first like to express my approval of the proposal in the committee's report.

The report we are debating today is extensive and contains a multitude of different areas within the subject of police matters. Since time will hardly suffice to touch upon all areas, I intend to limit myself to a few.

Mr. Speaker! I want to quote a passage from the County Administrative Board in Stockholm County's report on the police from 1993. It states: I am convinced that a decisive change occurs the day when police do not only appear as temporary visitors but also step out of the police cars, secure premises on-site, stay for good and become a natural part of the local community.

The report, or the investigation if one prefers, was made by Olof Egerstedt. The quote is also his. This is the vision that largely formed the basis for the so-called local police reform, which was implemented in the mid-90s. I note that this is still just a vision today.

Mr. Speaker! What should the police do? Fight crime, of course, say most, and this is what I mean that the police are now doing better and better thanks to the fact that the government and the Sweden Democrats, through a number of measures, have strengthened the police's opportunities to fulfill their mission.

The Swedish Police Authority has in recent years received both resources and new tools to, among other things, combat and prevent organized crime on a scale we have not seen before. We see, for example, that the number of shootings in the public environment has decreased significantly and that the clearance of that type of crime has increased markedly. We see that crime rings and gang criminals are deprived of liberty and prosecuted regardless of where in the world they are located. Here, the Swedish police have taken several large steps forward in international cooperation, with clear positive results.

The fight against organized crime is however far from won, and it must not be won at the expense of the fight against the crime that predominantly affects ordinary people: theft and fraud. Here, the police still have a long way to go before reaching satisfactory clearance figures. Part of this lies in the preventive work, and part of the preventive work lies in increased visibility out among the people and not least on our roads. To be able to increase visibility, however, an increased number is required. We simply need more police officers.

Mr. Speaker! How many police officers should there be in Sweden? How many police officers must we hire to achieve one goal or the other in absolute terms or in comparison with other European countries? Must one really be police-trained to perform police work?

When I, ten years ago, in 2016, calculated the need for police officers compared to how it looked in 1975 based on population size, the number of police officers, and the number of reported crimes, I concluded that we would need an additional 15,000 police officers to achieve the same conditions that prevailed 40 years earlier. Since then, the number of police officers has increased by approximately 5,000, and my firm opinion is therefore that we need to hire more. How many more and which comparison we should eventually use can be a matter of different opinions.

Mr. Speaker! It is no easy task to recruit, train, and deploy police officers in the right quantities and to the right places. The difficulties tempt simple solutions, such as, instead of recruiting police officers, settling for recruiting police employees. It is much simpler and cheaper and goes much faster, because they do not need a long and expensive police training. They can instead be quickly deployed into service and work there until trained police officers can take over their tasks – that is, until they can be replaced by police officers.

It is a mindset that suggests that police officers don't actually need the long, expensive training. In practice, 10,000 police employees means that we wouldn't need to train and employ a single police officer, but we could achieve that figure by employing civilians who, after a short training, are to perform police work.

There is, of course, a number of work tasks within the police organization that do not require police training and which are better performed by civilian employees in various positions. There is also a need for personnel with knowledge outside the purely police spectrum, such as technically and analytically skilled personnel who contribute specialized expertise to crime fighting.

Another way to speed up the process and increase the pace of recruitment and training is to lower the admission requirements for the police training. If it turns out that any part of the admission process is a problem for any specific group, one can always lower the requirements in that part or remove the element entirely. In that way, one can squeeze in as many individuals as the system allows through the police training and out into the operations.

I do not believe in any of these methods to increase the number of police officers or the interest in the police profession. Instead, I am convinced that good pay and economic reforms of the kind that the government and Sverigedemokraterna are now implementing, for example in the form of paid training, are what will attract the right individuals to the police profession. One will then be able to recruit those who, even if the requirements were to be raised, would get through the police training without problems, and they will then become stable employees in the Swedish police force.

Mr. Speaker! In my eyes, the police profession is among the finest professions one can have in our society. It is the police – and police officers – who stand between us and those who do not wish us well and who stand between our democracy and those who want something else. It is the police – and police officers – who every day, around the clock, during all the days of the year defend the society that most of us live in and contribute to. It is therefore our responsibility to ensure that the conditions for doing that work are the very best.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Petter Löberg (S)

Mr. Speaker! It was a balanced and good contribution from Mats, I feel.

Initially, we in the Social Democrats have a whole host of reservations in this report. For the sake of time, as they say, I nevertheless move for approval only to reservation number 1, which concerns our desire to introduce a clear and good principle that for every krona we spend on the hard, repressive side, we shall spend just as much on preventive work. It is naturally point 1 among the reservations by coincidence, but it is also perhaps the most important fundamental proposal that we Social Democrats put forward within criminal policy. Krona for krona, quite simply – it permeates all the work that we do in the criminal policy area.

In this speech, I will perhaps above all focus on the local police presence. It is actually about much more than what fits into the public crime policy debate, I feel. Here in the chamber, we have often been in general agreement on this, but I think we should remind each other.

It is most often spoken about the number of police in general, and the number naturally plays a major role. But for people in everyday life, it is not just about organizational charts and Excel sheets, it is about how these people exist in the organization in our country and in practice – whether the police are visible, whether the police know the areas one works in, whether the police know the people and, perhaps most importantly, whether the people know the police. It is about that relationship; that is where long-term security is built in our society, after all.

A police officer who is locally present sees things that would otherwise be missed. You see which places are undergoing changes in the near term, not just through a random sample or a patrol by car, briefly and quickly and with different people every time. You need continuity, and you need long-term perspective.

One can also see at the individual level which young people are heading into crime. One can meet the shop owners who experience threats daily in their everyday lives, in the neighborhood square. One can also note when open drug trafficking increases in a local area – or perhaps decreases, as we can see not least in Stockholm where the number of open drug scenes is decreasing dramatically, which is extremely pleasing.

When you are a locally operating police officer, you also notice when people stop talking to the police – when they stop calling when they are victims of a crime or see something happening. This is fundamentally what this local police presence is about. It is not just about rushing out when something has already happened. It is about preventing, before it happens.

These are naturally self-evident, but fundamentally it is about something that we in politics must exert strong pressure for. When we in politics have the strength to do so, it will also result in a return in the organization – I am completely convinced of that.

Local presence is not nostalgia. Sometimes we can talk about our old favorites, such as the neighborhood police. I have done so in the chamber several times and mentioned Conny and Lasse at home in Hässleholmen in Borås, who meant a lot for my area during my upbringing. Hässleholmen is one of the particularly vulnerable areas in our country, which you perhaps know about.

But nostalgia aside – fundamentally, it is about a working method and an approach that I believe we have much to learn from, even 40 years later. We obviously need a police force that can handle the coarse, complex, national and international problem pictures. But we must not only focus on elite capabilities, even if at times it is very much what is required.

The local police are a bridge between the rule of law and social preventive work, not least – the concrete cooperation that takes place between school, social services, police and leisure. There we must not withdraw.

I can note that in recent years, under the SD government's watch, we have been able to read about police station after police station closing in our elongated country. You change their designation, and the opening hours are changed – from five days a week to just a few hours a week. You might have a police sign there, but in practice, there is no police station left. There might still even be as many police officers working inside the building and located in the municipality's area, but fundamentally, one simply gives walkover in the contact with the citizens.

The state presence is being withdrawn on many fronts. We can mention here that we have closed police stations in Olofström, Sölvesborg, Rättvik, Hallstavik, Leksand and Vansbro. It is many places in Dalarna – I see Ulrika and Lars here in the chamber.

Socialdemokraternas response has been a moratorium. That is what we demanded in Almedalen, and we are following up on it in today's report. We must put a stop to this. I have also been pleased to hear that Petra Lundh has held the same view; she is also concerned that her own agency has headed in that direction. This must simply end now.

It is not just about police stations, it should be said. We have seen a draconian cut when it comes to service offices in our country. That concerns another committee and another minister, but the list of locations that have been deprived of their state presence when it comes to Försäkringskassan, tax offices, and Arbetsförmedlingen, among others, is long. It is Ånge, Tranås, Trelleborg, Piteå, Ludvika, Sandviken, Östhammar, Arvika, Kungälv, Landskrona, Lindesberg and many other places. That list is incredibly long, and it looks like it will continue in the same way even next year.

Why is this being done? Why are police stations with a local presence being closed? Why are state agencies being closed in our elongated country? It becomes a backhanded move for the SD-government when it comes to this. If one is to have a sense of community, there should, for shame, also be some action in the house. It cannot just be beautiful words about the whole of Sweden should live. There must be something concrete as well.

I will briefly speak about two other reservations that we have. One concerns economic crime, which we need to have a strong focus on. This is about companies, false invoices, money laundering, and advanced schemes. It is about football agents who are unprofessional. And it is about an economic crime authority that currently feels a bit shaky when it comes to trust. We need to signal that the Economic Crime Authority is one of our sharpest tools for exactly this.

The second thing we Social Democrats have pushed for in this committee report concerns assignments regarding crime that are posted via advertisements targeted primarily at very young people – crime as a service, which you have all heard about. We demand that the police should have the possibility to take down these advertisements, in the same way as within the terror legislation, for other matters.

In conclusion, I would like to make a small election summary, a classic election statement. We need a little ideology here as well, I feel, Mr. Speaker; we never suffer from that.

We Social Democrats will never back down in the fight against crime. It is very clear. We are not on a study visit when we go out to the so-called particularly vulnerable areas. We do not do what the liberal minister did a couple of years ago, who had a bulletproof vest and took selfies with it on when he went out to a suburb. It is there that we have our S-associations and our activities. We know the people in these suburbs. They are our suburbs. I was born in such a suburb myself, for the record. Running around with a bulletproof vest and taking selfies there if you are a minister in an SD-government is nothing less than shameful. Now he is no longer there, fortunately.

With this said, it is also important that we do not get drawn into the simplifying and partly numbing rhetoric that exists regarding the criminal justice policy and the political conversation as a whole, for the rest.

I often think about how we have actually ended up here. What will people think of us in the chamber when they look back on our time in 20 years? We Members of Parliament see a small glimmer of light by having the finest assignment one can have in our country. Do we perhaps have reason to feel a little more guilt? Yes. One might think that we failed to provide security and faith in the future for everyone. We let crime take hold and segregation go far in our society. We did not invest in the whole solution. We leaned heavily towards repression but did not put the same effort into stopping new recruitment – we did not manage that balancing act. We also did not manage the balancing act between the need for efficiency in the justice chain and the demands for legal certainty and the rule-of-law principles that our society rests on. We did not find the balance point. That is perhaps what we will be judged for in the future, when we are gone.

It is also the case that politics often consists of chosen statements, press conferences and tactical maneuvers instead of sitting down at a table and talking about solutions. I miss the cross-party committees and inquiries that we had during previous terms while I sat in the Riksdag, for many and most parliamentary reasons. One sat in long inquiries together with the other parties and hammered out good proposals for Sweden's best. This is totally invisible today. Is that need for dialogue no longer there? If we win the election, I hope that we have the strength to invite you from the future opposition to dialogue in a way that you have not really had the strength to do during the recent years.

Mr. Speaker! I am a bit long-winded, but now I only have three lines left in my script. I want to return to what I concluded my speech with in last year's committee report debate. Most of all, we should have a great deal of anguish that we allowed a society to be shaped where the gaps grew and people were left behind. That is where the root of the guilt lies – nowhere else.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! I thank Petter Löberg for an interesting speech. I had not originally intended to request a reply, but I became somewhat interested when Petter Löberg mentioned that for every krona that goes to repressive activity, one krona should go to preventive activity. That sounds good, one might think. But crime prevention is actually a rather vague and broad concept. What is crime prevention? It could be about safe families. It could be about social services and school. It could be about a huge amount of things. Is it the police who are to work on crime prevention? How are these kronor to be used? How have you planned for them to be distributed so that this can be achieved? That is my first consideration.

Petter Löberg knows my background – I have worked as a police officer in Malmö for about 40 years. For the last 30 years, people have constantly talked about crime prevention – the primary thing is that we must work on crime prevention and ensure that crimes do not occur. So that is obvious – everyone wants that. But I believe that Petter Löberg agrees that the results are quite disappointing. Had we succeeded with that crime prevention work 30 years ago, we would not be standing here today discussing gang violence, organized crime, and young people committing serious violent crimes and such things.

How have the Social Democrats and Petter Löberg intended for these kronor to be distributed and used?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Petter Löberg (S)

Mr. Speaker! I thank Member Elofsson for very good questions. I think a lot about this. A few years ago – it is about seven years ago now – we introduced the first crime prevention program in Sweden in over 25 years. It was a paper product. It was I who took it to the Chamber and laid it here, and we voted it through with a fairly broad majority. I believe it was good that we did it – to make visible what needed to be done. But then one was supposed to resource that crime prevention program. Then it did not result in more than a coordinator at the County Administrative Board. It did not feel directly like action in the house.

When we talk about crime prevention work – we have followed up on this in our budget motions in recent years – it is about enormously powerful measures within labor market policy. I believe that the best crime prevention work is the 90-day guarantee. No youth under 25 years of age should go without a study place, internship, or work – none! One must seek out those who are not enrolled in these systems and find out why they are not. That is what is done in many Social Democrat-led municipalities, including in my own municipality, Borås. It costs money to ensure that all young people have work, a study place, or an internship. But it is also the best crime prevention work.

All young people, 100 percent, should have summer jobs – there are many Social Democratic municipalities that have that goal, as well as one or two bourgeois-governed municipalities. When it comes to investments made in school and other areas, it is also the case that one must prioritize something as boring as state grants to municipalities and regions. They need these grants to be able to manage child and adolescent psychiatry and ensure that there is money for school, leisure, and labor market initiatives. But instead, one has chosen to lower taxes for the rich and withdraw enormous resources from municipalities and regions, which is a shame.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! The last thing was a standard answer from the Social Democrats. We have heard it before, so to speak.

It is roughly 40 billion that we spend on the Police Authority. I might be misinterpreting Petter Löberg in some way, but if I understand him correctly, is it then a question of 40 billion for repressive activity? In that case, one should also spend 40 billion on crime prevention activity. Then labor market measures still remain. Is one also supposed to subsidize jobs with these 40 billion, or how is it intended? It becomes very vague at the edges, I think, when one talks about this. Police activity is very concrete, and there is also crime prevention activity within the police. Petter Löberg himself was touching on this regarding increased visibility in local areas and municipalities and so on.

I am still a bit confounded about how the distribution should take place. Even if one taxes the rich, I do not think those 40 billion will be enough. But I do not know – I might have miscalculated.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Petter Löberg (S)

Mr. Speaker! The member naturally places a good focus on what should be defined as crime prevention work. For example, the police, through extensive work with the banks, have ensured that internet fraud has decreased this year, which is very pleasing. That is crime prevention work. However, it is financed within the budget item for the Swedish Police Authority, so it could be perceived as repressive. But of course, even this can be quantified. It would then naturally require looking back, so that one obtains a time horizon.

In our budgets, we have invested in what we perceive to be the long-term crime-preventing aspects: ensuring that we overcome segregation and unemployment and ensuring that people manage to complete their schooling. This aligns with all research and all the international experiences that we in our committee have gained when we have traveled. This is said by the police wherever you are in the world, not least by the American police, who are not known for being particularly soft around the edges, so to speak. You should not just build more prisons, hire more police officers and increase the penalties, but you must remember that everything is about the school, said the police in Baltimore when we were traveling and met them. The same thing was said by the police in Chicago and New York – invest in the school!

But it must also be done. It is not done by just writing demands on different papers. No, resources are required to ensure that there are leisure educators who take care of those who might not be having much fun at home, and that there is good child and adolescent psychiatry for those who need help with their well-being and who express it in the form of crime. We know that almost all criminals feel very poorly.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Martin Melin (L)

Mr. Speaker! I have three things to say. First, I want to thank Member Löberg for emphasizing that school is important. I represent a party that also thinks so. I am pleased to announce that this government is presenting the largest school budget in modern times. We are investing very much in school, and hopefully, it will bear fruit in the future.

There are two things besides that which I am bouncing off a little bit. First and foremost, I want to praise the speech. Petter Löberg is my favorite Social Democrat in the speaker's chair. I agree with much of what the member says. So did I today. Until 3 minutes and 51 seconds into the speech, I agreed one hundred percent with what he said. Then he began to speak about Mats Persson and a bulletproof vest.

I was there. It was Mats and I who were out and riding with the police in Rinkeby in Stockholm. It was not, therefore, a visit that many members of parliament make, where you go into a station, meet some police chief and receive a briefing. We rode with police on active alert.

It was the police who demanded that we had protective vests. I have a bit more experience wearing a protective vest and wore it under my jacket. Mats had to wear it inside his blazer. It was the police who demanded it. I do not think that Mats should be blamed for this.

I can also state that Mats took off his bulletproof vest as soon as we stepped out of the police car and walked around and talked to people in Rinkeby. I think he should have that recognition.

I have a question about the police stations, which will take more than 30 seconds to ask. The member may consider: What is it that the member wants people to be able to do at a police station?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Petter Löberg (S)

Mr. Speaker! "Mats Persson is not here and cannot defend himself," people usually say. But he was still a minister and a public figure.

I have no comments on the fact that he wore a bulletproof vest. I am well aware of why he wore a bulletproof vest. I have myself worn a bulletproof vest when I have been out and conducted patrols in that manner. That is what one should do. One should follow the rules that exist.

What I reacted against was primarily that he had to take a selfie in the suburbs. It became a very strange signal with that image which I think was unfortunate. He could have taken a picture of himself when he wasn't wearing the bulletproof vest and was walking around and talking to people. Now we leave that question and move to the perhaps more central question.

What is a police station for? That is an important question. Many talk about response times and feel the greatest need for the police to be available when something really serious happens.

We mean that a locally present police force has other values. There must be investigative activity on site even in smaller towns and in smaller municipalities. A police station is not just an expedition.

It is the risk when you rename them and call them police expeditions or similar. A police station is more or less a mechanism with investigative activities, expertise, and local knowledge of the area.

That is what we mean, that one loses if one regionalizes too much and places all investigators in the regional centers. They need to be out in the areas where people commit everyday crimes. This applies in particular to volume crime or when we have theft gangs on site.

Then local knowledge is required to investigate and solve the crimes. That is what we are talking about when we talk about police stations. It is not an expedition in the first instance for those who do not have BankID. We also need to help with that. There are many elderly people who feel insecure.

For us, a police station is a much broader concept. It should be a fully equipped police operation.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Martin Melin (L)

Mr. Speaker! I thank Petter Löberg for that answer. It was a good answer that clarifies a lot.

It seems that there is a belief that if there is a police station in a small town, there are also police officers there. The problem is that if there is a police station there, the police officers sit inside the police station and keep it under surveillance, keep it open, and so on.

In Stockholm's inner city inside the toll ring, there were twelve police stations 25 years ago, two of which were open around the clock. Today, there are two stations. I don't even think they are open, if I'm being honest.

What it is about is that today all reports are made digitally. You can call and make reports. If it is urgent, the police will come to you. The same applies out in the smaller villages. There are many who believe that they want a police station so that the police can then come quickly. But that is not the case.

I thank you for the answer. What one wants to see is a locally anchored police force also on the investigation side and so on. I buy that. It is a good answer.

The Social Democrats submitted a proposal that there should be a police station in every municipality. That would be 290 police stations. Just think about what it costs to rent a police station. Then there should be four, five police officers around the clock at each. It is unreasonable.

I accept the answer. I have received an answer that I am satisfied with. It means that one wants a local police force that is not just police on the street but that there is also police who can investigate. I assume that I interpreted the answer correctly.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Petter Löberg (S)

Mr. Speaker! If Martin Melin is satisfied, then I am satisfied!

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Charlotte Nordström (M)

Mr. Speaker! The police arrested suspects for almost all shootings in 2025. There is a simple way to measure crime policy success. It is not in the number of press conferences one has held, in the number of tweets one makes or in the number of motions that one has submitted. It is measured by more criminals being caught, fewer people being shot and more crime victims getting justice. For the first time in a long time, the direction is pointing in the right direction.

The number of shootings has almost halved. Fewer people are being killed. More acts of violence are prevented before they occur. International theft gangs are being stopped on a larger scale than ever before. Reported thefts and crimes of misappropriation have decreased more than in any previous year. It is not rhetoric. It is the Police Authority's own figures.

It is not a coincidence. It is the result of a methodical, persistent, and sometimes difficult reform work. It is the result of the government delivering by giving the police the tools, mandates, and resources to do their job.

Mr. Speaker! One of the most important changes concerns new tools for the police. We have strengthened the possibilities to use secret coercive measures, not least in preventive work. This means that crimes can be stopped before anyone manages to pull the trigger.

It is about staying one step ahead, not just reacting to crimes but preventing them. The results are visible: more planned acts of violence are stopped in time, and more instigators are prosecuted.

When the government took office in the autumn of 2022, Sweden had approximately 22,000 police officers. Today, we are up to over 25,000. A record number began police training during 2025. It was the highest number ever during a single calendar year.

Uppsala University is opening a new police education starting in 2027. Student loans can be written off for those who choose the police profession. The trainee salaries were increased for the first time since 2002. We are not just building a larger police force but a more attractive one, and it is yielding results.

Mr. Speaker! The criminal economy turns over enormous sums with crime profits of approximately 185 billion. These are funds that finance weapons, drugs, and the recruitment of children. If you take the gangs' money, you take the lifeblood. Therefore, the work against economic crime has been intensified.

The Economic Crime Authority is being strengthened with a clearer focus: more crimes shall be investigated, more shall be prosecuted, and sharper cooperation shall take place with other authorities.

A decisive step has been taken by establishing the Financial Intelligence Centre where the Police Authority, the Economic Crime Authority and the Swedish Tax Agency, together with private actors, work side by side to track the money, to strike at the profits and to make it harder and less profitable to be a criminal.

Now, for the first time, there is a united force that can attack the criminal economy's lifeblood. If you take the money, you also take the power.

Mr. Speaker! We have also seen how crime is changing. Gangs recruit children on social media with open advertisements for assignments – murder and assault – to then lure them into encrypted channels where no one sees. It is a system, and we must break that system. The digital world is not a lawless space. Nor should it be allowed to become one.

The Government submitted a proposal on January 16 to give the police the right to order platforms to remove recruitment content within one hour – that is, not within a day or within a week, but within one hour. If the platform does not follow the law, sanction fees will be imposed.

The government is now working in a fast track to be able to submit concrete proposals to the Riksdag as soon as possible. This is an important part of breaking the new recruitment. Every child who is not drawn into crime is a victory for the individual and for society as a whole. We are not naive about reality. We face it.

Mr. Speaker! The same applies to violence against women. Safety is not just about fighting gangs. It is also about protecting women in their most vulnerable situations. Violence in close relationships often occurs in silence, behind closed doors.

The police have strengthened their work. More high-risk individuals are identified, more crimes are detected, and more suspects are prosecuted. This work must continue, because every woman who lives in fear in her own home is a failure for society. We do not intend to accept that. The men who hit, threaten, and terrorize their partners shall no longer be able to hide behind the walls of the home.

When the preventive secret coercive measures were introduced against gangs, it was a historical breakthrough. Wiretapping, reading of messages and technical equipment are tools that save lives and give the justice system the opportunity to prevent gang crimes before they are committed.

The government has now appointed an inquiry to investigate the possibility of using the same tools against men's systematic violence against women in close relationships. The same logic that has saved lives in gang crime shall be applied to save the women who live in everyday terror in their homes.

Mr. Speaker! Safety is not built only with laws; it is also built in people's everyday lives. It is built by a police force that is visible, that is nearby and that builds relationships. We now see more police officers working in outer service and a local presence that is prioritized again. In cooperation with municipalities, the business community and associations, they can carry out preventive work that makes a difference and that is smooth and effective against both smaller and larger crime challenges.

Such a safety-creating effort truly makes a difference in small towns as well as in larger cities. It is in precisely that direction we want to continue. The police shall grow locally, and a larger part of the growth shall take place in outer service.

We have also introduced stay bans, which many in here were against. Dangerous persons can be prohibited from staying in places where they create insecurity. If the ban is breached, imprisonment awaits. The results are clear: open drug scenes are being shut down, robberies have decreased, and shop owners dare to have evening hours again as more people dare to go out. This is concrete politics that makes a difference here and now and which is clearly noticeable in people's everyday lives.

Mr. Speaker! Sweden shall be a country where a woman can walk home safely in the evening and where a child in a vulnerable area does not have to choose between the gangs and the future. Sweden shall be a country where those who commit crimes know that the justice system will find them and hold them accountable. These are not promises, but it is what we deliver.

We have turned the development, but the work is far from finished. Serious crime remains. The recruitment of young people must be broken. The criminal economy must be pushed back even further. But the direction is clear. Previous passivity has turned into action. We have moved from inadequate tools to a police force that is allowed to do its job.

It matters who is in power. It matters whether one dares to make decisions that strengthen the rule of law or whether one hesitates. We Moderates stand firm. We want a strong police force, sharp tools, and a clear focus on results. Safety is not negotiable. It must apply to everyone, in all of Sweden.

Mr. Speaker! With reference to the ongoing and completed work, I move for the approval of the committee's proposal that the Riksdag shall reject all motions in the report.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Gudrun Nordborg (V)

Mr. Speaker! I naturally stand behind all the reservations that the Left Party is involved in, but I move for approval only to reservation 14.

It is about violence against women by men – a very broad theme. It is also an ancient theme. White Ribbon has called it the world's longest war. It is a serious war.

When we hear this term, most of us might think it is about men who abuse their woman, the one he is or has been married to or living with. But it is also a term that includes prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes, which I will soon return to.

These are serious societal problems at all levels. All possible and reasonable effective means must be used to counteract this violence. It must not only be about beautiful words. The Government now marks – after the Christmas holidays when we had a series of high-profile murders of women by close relatives – that it wants a zero vision and to put a stop to this deadly violence. Gladly, I say! At first glance, this seems proactive, but much remains if we are to get there.

Over decades, we have, thank goodness, seen that different measures have resulted in a decrease in violence. Previously, for a long time, it was so that a woman was killed by a close man every third week. Now it is one woman approximately every month; it was eleven women last year. Every woman's life is, of course, immensely important and must be protected.

It is also about all the women who are heading towards what can become fatal violence. They are subjected to incredibly severe injuries, at least internally. But many are also physically injured.

To ensure that this is reduced, the government says that it will now counter this with full force and that this crime shall be combated as deliberately and systematically as gang crime. Here we have another dilemma. We sometimes see these as opposites, but they are also sometimes strongly connected.

A lot is actually going wrong when it comes to men's violence against women in close relationships. We have had major problems for those women who want to break up from a relationship. The permit requirement, which was introduced on absurd grounds in 2024, has led to 34 voluntary shelters being closed down. They are forced to close because they have not received permits.

Some of the requirements in this permit process are what I would call horrible. This concerns, for example, that one is not granted a permit because one wants an alcohol ban at the protected housing, which I think is a starting point. It is needed particularly because it concerns both women and children and their safety at the housing.

There are also risk-reducing methods, as is indicated in the reservation. There are examples of reported great successes with using such methods. Police Region Syd has reported a total of 97 percent successful cases where the violence is said to have ceased.

There we must probably be very vigilant. What is it that is thought to have ceased, and how have we effectively monitored this? I mean that one must always have partner contracts. The women who may be or have been affected must be involved and be able to quickly report to the police if something is not working, and they must be informed if a person they are afraid of breaks their agreement in the risk-reduction work.

Here we must also ask again: Can the woman leave a relationship? Can she get protected housing? Can she get her own apartment? And above all: Has all violence ceased? Has the post-violence ceased, that which we so often see cruel examples of with psychological and economic violence? There we must also increase vigilance, and there I am glad that we will soon receive new legislation.

I will now move on to prostitution and human trafficking. There are connections here to private violence. A high-profile case right now reminds us of this, where a man in Västernorrland is being prosecuted both for assaulting and raping his wife and for delivering her for sex sales to at least 120 men. This must at least be trafficking – a Swedish parallel case to the Pelicot case in France.

The woman is also horribly enough required to pay tax on her so-called income from the activities she was forced into under the influence of both alcohol and drugs. It truly becomes a double punishment via tax debts to the state. This is unreasonable and something we absolutely must change.

Something that we also think is difficult and that should be simpler when it comes to abuse in close relationships is the legal process. We should have very good conditions to achieve a legal process there. We have a designated suspect perpetrator. We often have a crime scene. But it is called the home, and there, crime scene investigations are far too rarely conducted. The police are now indicating through instructions on the website that this should always occur and that crime scene technicians should be used in all cases. I believe we would get infinitely further in the legal processes if that became possible.

Something I would also like to focus on is that human trafficking, or in any case exploitation, can be relevant when it concerns children and young people. Not infrequently they are drawn into a criminal activity, as someone touched upon here in the rostrum earlier. We would have much to gain from focusing better on this very serious crime arena, which is difficult to investigate but where women are subjected to trafficking and are made victims many times every day.

There are examples where a woman has been exploited by ten or more men on the same day. It is a terrible suffering that these women are exposed to. There, we could do much more. Among other things, we could create a different trust by cooperating broadly, letting the police receive support from social services and truly explaining how one can get support and help in different ways – not only that one can be a crime victim and a complainant in the process, if it becomes such, and receive a complainant's counsel, but also that one can be entitled to compensation and that via IOM, International Organization for Migration, one can get help with a reasonable establishment in one's home country with education or a new profession.

The police's work with these issues must be prioritized even much more. I want to assert that this is a form of organized activity where one earns even much more than from drugs. One can thus let the women be consumed time and again, while drugs disappear and must be delivered several times.

I mean that we must find many more measures. Competence development is needed so that one understands the scope of sexualized violence in all its arenas in order to be able to act skillfully as a police officer or as a partner to the police. It is also a matter of creating trust, and it is not least that we must act out in schools and reach the young people so that they are not involved in this activity, but instead, among other things with the help of the police in educational situations, we can create a hope for a much better and safer society where we all help each other against destructive and cruel forces.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! It has now been over eleven years since the police made the largest organizational change since the nationalization in 1965. 21 county police authorities were merged, and Sweden received a single police authority with seven regions and a number of national departments, one of which is a national operational department, Noa.

I myself was to some extent involved in the work of the Implementation Committee, whose guiding motto was "A police force closer to the citizens." Many, including the undersigned, were somewhat critical of parts of the change, but the proposal was adopted by a unanimous Riksdag and launched on January 1, 2015. All parties were therefore in agreement that we should have a police authority.

The change was in many respects relatively painful and initially had a major negative impact on the operational activities. It was seen as somewhat contradictory that one was to work towards getting closer to the citizens while simultaneously centralizing the operations. The result was also not entirely unexpected: the opposite. Police stations have closed in many places, as mentioned here earlier, and the local police presence has largely deteriorated.

The deficiencies identified and criticized by, among others, the Swedish National Audit Office concern that the police have not succeeded in staffing the local police areas to a sufficient extent and that there are deficiencies in the investigative activities.

Mr. Speaker! Property crimes today constitute just over 80 percent of all reported crimes. It is everyday crime that comes close to life and has a major impact on safety both for the individual and in the residential areas where they live.

This causes great damage to the victims and constitutes a major violation. It also often concerns crimes that have a close connection to serious organized crime. Today, it is actually estimated that around 40 percent of reported crimes have a connection to gang crime and organized crime. Around 400,000 crimes, therefore, have a connection to gang crime and organized crime.

We Christian Democrats have for a long time pushed for mass crime to be clearly prioritized. It is unacceptable that cases are being put on the back burner. We can, however, state that there is another way forward, because if we, for example, look at shoplifting and look south, we see that the clearance rate for this type of crime is over 80 percent in Germany. There, they solve 80 percent of shopliftings. Here in Sweden, we solve perhaps 5 percent – at best.

This is not good. Several retailers whom I have met say that they have stopped reporting shop thefts because far too few crimes lead to prosecution. The retailers see it as meaningless to report; they experience that the police shrug their shoulders and only dutifully receive the report, which is then written off without action. The thief is not prosecuted and can calmly continue their work.

As a Christian Democrat, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak about the values that have built our society strongly. In Sweden, we have a long tradition of high trust in the justice system. That the police have time to handle everyday crime is fundamental to preserving trust in the rule of law – and ultimately trust in one another as fellow human beings. Regardless of the severity of what has occurred, it affects us to know that law enforcement is not functioning as it should. The feeling of powerlessness becomes palpable, and at the same time, the signal to the criminal is that it is possible to get away with crime. It is a worrying development.

Confidence in the police remains high. The police actually have the highest level of confidence of all the agencies that are measured. But when one makes a corresponding measurement among crime victims, it is observed that only 20 percent think that the police do an effective job, and that is a figure that we must take very seriously.

One can observe, Mr. Speaker, that the Police Authority's leadership is well aware of the problem. On behalf of the government, several measures have now been taken within the framework of a larger transformation effort aimed at an increased local presence and increased efforts against petty crimes. We must work to ensure that a larger proportion of petty crimes are prioritized and that more crimes are solved, because crime victims must never be left behind.

Mr. Speaker! There may be an explanation for why it looks the way it does. It has been mentioned from this rostrum earlier that one of the reasons is that large resources are tied up by deadly gun violence, which we continue to have problems with. It is obviously important that such types of crime are prioritized. Serious crime has had and shall, of course, have very high priority.

The second part of the whole is that we have seen a digitalization of crime which in itself is challenging. This also has a strong connection to large-scale crimes and clear links to gang crime and organized crime. This applies in particular to fraud, drug offenses, and extortion.

To combat serious crime, we must therefore also investigate the quantity crimes when the prognosis for prosecution is good and ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted. Not least, it is about catching young people who are entering into criminality. It is, in other words, very important to investigate and prosecute even in these cases.

Mr. Speaker! With this said: The description of the problem is well known to the government, and we now have a government that is doing what is required. During the parliamentary term, we have put in place new and sharper legislation. As has been mentioned, the police and prosecutors have received better tools, which, in combination with a changed working methodology, has resulted in a significant increase in the clearance of precisely those serious violent crimes.

A large number of planned serious crimes have also been prevented through early interventions thanks to increased opportunities for the use of covert coercive measures. We are now also seeing a reduction in lethal violence, even though as recently as the day before yesterday, a shooting occurred in Helsingborg which caused one death and one person seriously injured. It is therefore still a problem, but the trend is downward. However, it is important to hold on and persevere, because from having spoken with the police, we know that it is still bubbling under the surface. Much work remains.

We are now launching an offensive against crime with a new criminal justice reform where the entire Penal Code is reviewed in order to shift the focus from the perpetrator to the crime victim. We are strengthening crime prevention work, putting the family at the center, and making historically large investments in the entire justice system. We are expanding the police and the justice system at record speed to strengthen investigative activities but also the local presence, which has long been neglected.

Mr. Speaker! It is not enough with a police presence for any hour a week. The core idea with the reorganization in 2015 was that the police should be closer to the citizens. The police shall be visible and have good local and personal knowledge as well as close cooperation with the municipality, the business community, associations and residents. Sweden shall be a safe country regardless of where one lives.

This and much more is needed. The Christian Democrats' intensive work to combat crime continues – step by step, budget by budget and reform by reform. You as a crime victim shall be able to trust Sweden again.

With this, I move for approval of the committee's proposal in the report, Mr. Speaker.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ulrika Liljeberg (C)

Mr. Speaker! Sweden is reached, if not every day, at least every week, by news of shootings, explosions, murders, and other acts of gross violence. We hear about various abuses and serious crimes. The crimes are far too many and far too cruel, and they are devastating both for individuals and for us as a country.

We also read in news reports or perhaps in social media about volume crimes such as thefts, vandalism and threats – crimes that don't even get a black headline anymore.

The police have a very important – often decisive – role in creating and restoring safety. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank all police officers and police employees for the efforts they make around the clock, all year round, for all of us in Sweden. A big thank you to you!

It was with sadness and shock that we were able to read in Svenska Dagbladet this weekend about the police officers who chose to take their own lives. I do not have more information than what is stated in the newspaper, but given what has emerged and the situation our country finds itself in, it feels important to raise this in today's debate.

What we have is, in fact, a reality where our police officers encounter serious crime, gang violence, domestic violence, and crimes against public order. They also encounter all the mental ill-health that exists in our society. This occurs at the same time as the Swedish Police Authority is growing enormously and every other police officer today has less than ten years in the profession.

Furthermore, we understand that the government and the Riksdag make decisions at a rapid pace – sometimes perhaps all too rapid. New laws – complicated, advanced laws – and new tools are introduced that are sometimes expected to be used correctly and in a legally secure manner by our individual police officers with only a few days' notice. I am not saying that our police officers cannot handle this, but we must be aware that the current situation entails an enormous pressure.

To this should be added that police officers cannot switch off completely after work, as we others often can. They do not necessarily have to be in uniform or be at work, but they have a constant obligation to intervene in crimes both at and outside of work. It is an obligation that is unique to the police.

The work with a sustainable working environment is therefore completely crucial for us to be able to combat the crime we have in Sweden today. Without police, the large budget supplements and all the new tools – such as biometrics, secret coercive measures, and forfeiture – do not play any role. In connection with the fact that National Police Commissioner Petra Lundh will come to the committee next week, I will therefore pose questions specifically about what has emerged and about the police's work on the working environment.

Mr. Speaker! The police are governed by laws, budget, and regulatory letters. The police also have a vision: We make all of Sweden safe and secure. As a member of the Centre Party, I want to highlight this with all of Sweden.

The government places rural area propositions on the Riksdag's table. It is said that the whole country should function and that the state presence is important. The police are, of course, also mentioned there. But in the Tidö government's Sweden, the police in the countryside are closing. Despite historically large investments in the police, several police stations in the countryside are being closed. The population in, among others, Dalarna and Blekinge have been informed that their opportunities to physically visit the police with fixed opening hours will disappear.

I think it is good to have investments in improved service by telephone and digitally. I also do not think we should have police stations in every municipality. But when it comes to community services such as passports and lost property, as well as reports of crimes and observations, it is absolutely crucial to have some local presence and accessibility.

Being referred to a police reception many miles and many hours away also hits those with the fewest resources hardest. It is always people with disabilities, people who are referred to public transport, people who are not digital, and people who have other challenges who are hit hardest by such decisions.

An accessible and present police force builds the trust that is crucial for preventing and investigating crimes. I would like to take this opportunity to pay a compliment to the previous speaker, the Christian Democrat Torsten Elofsson, who raised how important it is to tackle organized crime and that Sweden can do more in that area. Perhaps it is only the fifth time that you meet a police officer whom you dare to tell that you are being victimized in your own home or that you know something about local crime. Trust in the police is absolutely crucial. The police reception centers cannot be expected to solve all of this alone, but the reception centers can also not be seen merely as a negligible part of a streamlined organizational chart.

Mr. Speaker! We from the Centre Party have stood behind the historically large and much-needed increase in resources to the Swedish police that is now being realized. The police must, however, use their resources in an effective way and devote themselves to the right things. The work must be organized cost-effectively, and the flow from suspicion of a crime to executed punishment can be streamlined.

The decisive factor is that the police can focus on their main mission: the crime-fighting and crime-investigating work. There are a number of tasks that are currently performed by the police that could instead be performed by others.

We know that the handling of persons with mental illness and of affected persons takes up a lot of time, even though it is not about committed crimes or crime fighting. These tasks should reasonably be able to be handled by other principals, at least to a much greater extent than today. At the same time, other authorities could better assist the Swedish Police Authority in the crime-preventive and crime-combating work. In this way, the police could devote more time and resources to handling its core mission.

These are investigations and reforms that need to be implemented and that Sweden needs. Sweden can do more.

I would like to move for approval of reservation 7.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Martin Melin (L)

Mr. Speaker! When I stood here in the speaker's chair in 2023 and we were to debate motions regarding the police, I spoke for 18 minutes – then we had to break for the question period. I promise to keep it much, much shorter today. I will try to be a bit more concrete.

I started with politics because I discovered that things within the justice policy were not really working. Laws and regulations were outdated and ineffective. It was not unexpected that it was primarily the laws governing the police's work that I felt had their flaws. They were flaws that only politics could change. I was absolutely not alone in pointing out these flaws; there were many other police officers who did so.

No matter how many debate articles I wrote, interviews I gave, or morning talk shows I sat in, there was no one in this house, or in the house on the other side of the Strömmen, who listened or reacted. No one listened to the police on the street, who daily saw the gaps and flaws in the legislation and who saw how the legislation in some cases caused the law enforcement activities to not function effectively but were toothless. Criminals got away with it. It was neither difficult nor troublesome to be a criminal.

These were police officers who saw how better legislation and better tools could lead to more crimes being prevented or even solved. The only thing required was new laws or an improvement of the existing legislation.

I want to assert that what we see today – the organized crime, the gang criminality, and more and more young people being drawn into crime – is a result of a historically terrible crime policy. But, Mr. Speaker, now I am here. Now I am involved in politics, and I feel somewhere that I am in a position where I can actually make an impact. I am glad to be that during a period when we finally have a government that actually wants to make a difference. It is not a government that just talks about making a difference and appoints inquiries, but a government that actually wants to make a difference and that also makes a difference.

We have a Ministry of Justice that works around the clock, with staff who are knowledgeable and ambitious and who, I suspect, have the contact with reality that I believe has previously been lacking at the Ministry of Justice.

We have, for once, a Minister for Justice who truly wants to make a difference and who does not just want an office and a title.

Time and again, the Tidö agreement delivers, with one reform after another, new and effective laws as well as good and long-awaited tools to the law enforcement authorities. Not least, the customs service can now be the spearhead against smuggling that I believe it should be. The correctional services can finally begin building and can finally begin hiring more staff. We will also have more police officers – the number of police officers per inhabitant is now higher than it has been for the last 20–25 years.

We have a government that listens, that takes in, and that delivers. It is, admittedly, a delivery that I would have liked to have seen already 20 years ago.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ulrika Westerlund (MP)

Mr. Speaker! I intended primarily to speak about what our reservation 10, which I wish to move for approval of, is about.

Drug abuse is a source of many serious societal problems. Drug trafficking drives crime. Abuse of different drugs harms and kills people, both those who use drugs themselves and those around them. It is therefore in society's interest to attempt to reduce the harm through political steering measures.

Then the question arises whether we are conducting the most effective policy to achieve this. This has been questioned by many different actors. Among others, I can mention the Narcotics Inquiry, which in its final report *We can do better!* suggested that the government should consider proposing to the Riksdag to change the goal for narcotics policy as a whole from "a society free from drugs" to "a society with reduced harm from drugs." Miljöpartiet argues that this is a proposal that could have been taken further.

The Narcotic Policy Center, NPC, criticized the Criminal Justice Reform Commission this summer for choosing not to strengthen the possibility of treatment-oriented sentencing when someone with a drug addiction is convicted of minor drug offenses. NPC does not advocate for legalization or general decriminalization but for smarter sentences that hit more accurately than merely fines.

NPC points to the Drug Investigation's proposal to let the Police Authority develop the tool for reporting overdose more frequently during interventions against persons with addiction or during overdose incidents as a way forward.

NPC argues that this would have positive effects and also notes that the Narcotics Inquiry did not have the possibility to propose changes in criminal law in the same way that the Criminal Reform Inquiry did. NPC therefore wants a new inquiry to be appointed for the purpose of presenting proposals on how persons with addiction in the future can receive a different penalty than fines in the form of some type of support or treatment.

We in Miljöpartiet agree that this would be a positive reform, but we also want a new investigation to be tasked with investigating the legislation in the narcotics area without any preconceived notions to ensure that it is effective and contributes to achieving the goal of a society where the harms of narcotics are reduced.

Therefore, I move for approval of reservation 10, which concerns this.

Mr. Speaker! During the previous parliamentary term, the largest expansion of the Police Authority ever began. That work must now continue. More well-educated police officers and more civilian case officers were needed, while at the same time the conditions for today's police force must be strengthened so that more will stay in the profession. It is clear in today's debate that several colleagues in the committee have seen the same need.

It is important that the police have good conditions to work on crime prevention and creating safety, and for that, an increased local police presence is needed throughout the country. This too has been emphasized by previous debaters. This is needed no less in metropolitan regions and particularly vulnerable areas.

Miljöpartiet wants more area police officers to be trained and employed who can focus on working long-term, building relationships, and increasing people's trust in the police and the justice system. In this way, we increase safety on streets and squares, strengthen the police's ability to prevent and detect crime, and facilitate people's opportunity to come into contact with the police. For this reason, we specifically wrote that 500 million kronor of the appropriation to the Police Authority shall go towards training and employing more area police officers and more civilian staff. We therefore have the same level in our budget as the government but want to specifically point out that money shall be invested in exactly this.

Miljöpartiet also considers it important to work towards strengthening the general public's trust in the police – this partly to ensure that crime victims do not refrain from reporting crimes. As part of the work with this, the efforts made to ensure that those who work as police officers reflect the population in terms of gender and ethnicity should be intensified. A broad recruitment base also provides better opportunities for the police to have the right competence regarding cultural and linguistic understanding, with the improved capabilities this provides in both crime-fighting and preventive work.

Mr. Speaker! This broad report contains quite many pressing issues, and I would like to mention a few more of them.

Miljöpartiet believes that the work to combat economic crime should be intensified. This is required, not least, to improve the possibilities of reaching organized crime. Criminal networks launder money, evade taxes, and conduct dubious activities. Seeing and understanding the companies that on the surface conduct completely legitimate activities but at the same time fulfill central functions in the criminal ecosystem is difficult and requires specific, often in-depth industry knowledge and targeted tools and capabilities. We therefore want to see an investment in further developing the Economic Crime Authority's operations, and we believe that the possibility of establishing a national task force against economic crime should be investigated.

Miljöpartiet also wants the threat from violent extremism to be taken seriously. A specific issue concerns the phenomenon of so-called activity clubs. The Swedish Security Service describes that the activity clubs have a clear connection to violent right-wing extremism. The number of activities doubled in the country during last year, and Aktivklubb Sverige continues to grow. The activities are not always easy to uncover, and municipalities that rent out, for example, gyms or other sports facilities need more tools to detect and shut down activities. The network has also been shown to come close to decision-makers at the highest level. We call for a unified knowledge regarding the spread of activity clubs, right-wing extremism, and other extreme movements in Sweden today, not least in order to be able to update the legislation in the area.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Malte Tängmark Roos (MP)

Mr. Speaker! Last weekend, the all-Swedish football finally kicked off, but in addition to the fact that it has not gone so well for my team Halmstads Bollklubb in the first two rounds, it is a completely different matter that has taken up much of the media space after the first two rounds: the match abandonments and the use of pyrotechnics in many of the stands.

Swedish supporter culture is world-class. For several years, we have seen increased attendance numbers within most elite sports, and women and families with children are among the fastest-growing supporter groups. When it comes to tifos and chants, supporters from many countries can measure up to, for example, the Swedish football clubs, which the opening round of Allsvenskan proved once again.

The sports clubs and the supporter movements connected to them are central parts of Swedish association life and civil society and are arenas for both social cohesion and development in democratic craftsmanship for hundreds of thousands of Swedes. Safeguarding and nurturing the positive supporter culture is therefore something that everyone should strive for. At the same time, all visitors must also feel safe and secure at and around our arenas, and matches must be able to be carried out without long interruptions.

If we are to achieve both of those goals, Mr. Speaker, one thing is obvious to me and the Green Party: It is time that we introduce safe zones for pyrotechnics in Swedish arenas. I know that it is a controversial position. Many spectators feel anxious about standing near burning flares, and the smoke can both make it difficult to see what is happening on the pitch and cause discomfort upon inhalation. I myself had a flare thrown at me by an intoxicated spectator when I was a teenager, so I have full respect for the anxiety many feel.

But that is also why I think it is so important that we get somewhere in this issue, because the truth is that pyrotechnics will not disappear from our stands. The first matches of the season show this clearly. In fact, a large group of supporters and players think that pyrotechnics contribute to a better atmosphere and framing around the matches and are positive towards using them despite it being illegal.

For me, it is therefore obvious that we need to find another way forward to ensure that the pyrotechnics that will be burned are used in as safe a way as possible and in a way that reduces the risk of interruptions in matches and discomfort for spectators who do not participate in the burning. Damage minimization, not zero tolerance, needs to be the way forward.

In Norway, the government decided in 2024 to grant the Norwegian Football Federation a dispensation regarding the use of certain pyrotechnics, such as flares and smoke, in Norwegian stands. Supporters may, within clearly defined areas of the arenas, light pyrotechnic products of approved brands and types. A risk and vulnerability analysis and a fire safety analysis shall be conducted before the match, and the person using pyrotechnics must be sober and over 18 years old, have training, and be identifiable.

The advantages of this system are many. By pre-selecting within which areas of the arena flares may be lit, it becomes possible for spectators to choose to opt out of standing or sitting in sections where they may be exposed to smoke.

It can be ensured that the areas in the stands selected for pyrotechnics are the locations where the risk of accidents or unwelcome smoke development is lowest, and it can be ensured that the pyrotechnic products used in the stands are those that are most suitable from health and safety reasons.

By the users being both educated and easy to identify, the risk of injuries to them and the surroundings is reduced, and even the problem of masking in the stands should decrease as users of pyrotechnics would no longer be committing a crime that they wish to avoid punishment for.

The decision in Norway has been successful, and I am proud that Miljöpartiet is the first party to take a stand that safety zones for pyrotechnics should also be introduced in Sweden. It is good that the Hübinette investigation has been thrown in the trash, but it is clear that something needs to be done to strengthen safety in the arenas without undermining the positive supporter culture. Legal pyrotechnics in organized forms is the way forward.

Mr. Speaker! I would like to briefly take the opportunity to raise the problem of reckless driving, which plagues many cities, not least my hometown Malmö. Cars that are driven far too fast or that have been equipped with modifications to make extra much noise create great insecurity and anxiety among residents and hinder the night's sleep for many.

Malmö city has installed several so-called noise cameras, which, with advanced technology and AI, can identify exactly which cars are making noise, measure the speed, and check the registration number against the Transport Agency's registers. This is a technology that works very well in, among other places, Paris. Swedish municipalities, however, have no right to either access specific details for these pieces of information or share them with the police, and the police do not have the right to use the information to prosecute those motorists or vehicle owners whose cars are illegally loud or are driving too fast.

In an interpellation debate with me in November last year, Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer announced that the new law on information exchange between authorities would mean that municipalities such as Malmö stad would be given the opportunity to share information from noise cameras with the police.

A new legal analysis from Malmö stad states, however, that although the municipality may now share information from the noise cameras regarding the number of noise violations and speed violations, the municipality still may not, under current legislation, collect personal data in the form of cars' registration numbers or link these to traffic violations. For this, further legislative changes would be required that allow municipalities to be permitted to carry out traffic surveillance for this purpose and collect personal data.

The analysis also concludes that even if municipalities had been allowed to share information regarding violations with the Swedish Police Authority, the police would not have been able to prosecute the violations since criminal liability for, for example, speeding violations and other similar offenses falls on the vehicle's driver, not on the vehicle's owner. The Swedish Police Authority would therefore not have benefited from information on which vehicle had driven too fast or caused a disturbance for the specific purpose of prosecuting the violation. In order to be able to use the information, the legislation regarding criminal liability would need to be changed so that this falls on the vehicle's owner, not on the driver, as it does today.

The government's primary and so far only measure against the "vaninneskörningarna" (madness-driving), which furthermore was only a side effect of another law with a different purpose, will therefore do very little good in the fight against the "ligisterna" (the "ligi-ists").

The government needs to take a significantly more active responsibility for combating the reckless driving in our cities, and the absolute minimum that can be demanded is that the municipalities should be allowed to collect and share all relevant data from noise cameras with the police and that the police should be allowed to use this data to prosecute the reckless drivers. The people of Malmö expect all parties to take this problem seriously.

(Applause)

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(A decision was to be taken on 15 April.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)