Response to interpellation 2022/23:154 on preparation for contact with children for sexual purposes

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Pontus Andersson has asked me if I am prepared to act for new legislation that means that persons should be able to be convicted for attempted or preparation for contact with children for sexual purposes.

First, I want to emphasize that combating sexual abuse against children is an extraordinarily urgent task for our entire society and, of course, also for the government. It is of utmost importance that such crimes are prevented and deterred.

The provision on contact for the purpose of meeting a child in a sexual context, which we often call grooming or the grooming offense, criminalizes proposing or agreeing to a meeting with a child under 15 years of age if the purpose is to commit a specific sexual act against the child. The provision has become particularly important in view of the technological developments and the new possibilities for communication that it has brought about.

The grooming offense is designed as a kind of attempted or preparatory offense to other sexual offenses. Against that background, attempt or preparation of contact for the purpose of meeting a child for sexual purposes is not criminalized, but it is covered, so to speak, by the grooming offense.

An important part in the fight against sexual abuse against children is also the law enforcement capacity. Within the police, internet-related sexual abuse against children is handled by particularly specialized investigation groups at the IT crime centers. The police have also developed national guidelines for how the investigation work should be conducted. At the Prosecution Authority, there are, among other things, specially appointed prosecutors who investigate crimes against children.

As Pontus Andersson has pointed out, the coalition parties in the Tidö Agreement have agreed that the use of provocative measures shall be investigated. At the moment, I cannot say anything about the details of the assignment. But as appears from the Tidö Agreement, the use of the methods to combat sexual crimes online shall in particular be considered in this work.

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

Pontus Andersson (SD)

Mr. Speaker! In Swedish legislation, there is the possibility to convict a person for attempted or preparation of various types of crimes.

One of the crimes where problems do arise is in the criminal classification of contact with children for sexual purposes - this is because one of the problems with being able to use provocative measures in the future to reach sexual offenders is that today there is no possibility to convict a person for preparation for contact with children for sexual purposes. This gap in the legislation has been noted by, among others, the website Dumpen, whose activities aim to seek out potential sexual offenders on the internet.

In the Tidö Agreement, there is an agreement that provocative measures shall be codified into law, and in particular, the use of provocative measures regarding sexual offenses on the internet shall be considered. This is what I and the Minister agree on. Working methods similar to provocative measures have been carried out, among others in Dumpens work. But even major daily newspapers have used it to identify presumptive sex offenders and pedophiles.

My view is still that it would be best if it were one of our law enforcement agencies that engaged in reaching out to potential sex offenders rather than private individuals doing it on their own initiative. Presumably, the work would have been carried out more efficiently, and the authorities could have reached even more people.

This tool will, however, be limited by current legislation because it is not considered a crime to contact a child for sexual purposes if there is no crime victim, which is the case when potential sex offenders fall into a trap. It is required that the contact occurs with an actual child, which is not the case whether it is law enforcement authorities carrying out provocative measures or if it is private individuals doing so.

The people that Dumpen has come into contact with on the internet are people who do not only have fantasies about committing abuse against children; they are people who have these fantasies and who proceed to the act by actually leaving their home to meet this child to commit an abuse. In other words: One reaches dangerous people. They are often people who work close to children and people who have set out to destroy a child's life.

As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker: Would it not be better if we, from a political standpoint, ensured that we enacted laws that mandate our law enforcement agencies to work towards protecting our children from dangerous people? It is at least my opinion that the vulnerable in society, in this case children, should be protected against those people who want to harm them.

Mr. Speaker! Against this background, I asked the Minister for Justice, Gunnar Strömmer, and wondered if the Minister is prepared to act for new legislation on the issue. The answer from the Minister is not quite what I had hoped for.

That grooming is criminalized is important, but for the purpose of proactively seeking out potential sex offenders, it is not sufficient. My view is that new legislation is required. Does the Minister not see the potential in law enforcement agencies working with provocative measures for preventive purposes to reach future sex offenders?

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

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Pontus Andersson, for the member raising these extraordinarily urgent and important issues!

I believe that most citizens would agree that, in addition to the fact that the crime is understood to be serious for the crime victims we are talking about, this is also one of the most offensive things one can imagine when it comes to crime.

First, I want to emphasize that attempted crimes, the attempt to commit the crime, are already criminalized through the grooming offense. I would like to dwell on that a bit. It is a fairly broad regulation, where one can say that the person who proposes or agrees to a meeting with a child under the age of 15 is punished for it regardless of whether the agreement or the meeting actually leads to an assault. The person who contacts children and proposes this when there is a child on the other side is punished. It is very important to say this.

Now it might get a bit legally technical, but one can say that our legislation is based on that an attempt must be an attempt linked to the crime victim. It is thus that the attempt relationship arises. That is also where we fall a bit outside with the cases that Pontus Andersson brings up, where it is not the crime victim on the other side of the contact but an adult person appearing as a child. As Pontus Andersson describes, the perpetrator therefore believes that one is in contact with a child on the other side, but it then turns out to be an adult. The question then is: Should this situation also be criminalized?

There is no doubt that it is an offensive action by adults even in that situation, but one can say that we would then be in somewhat unknown territory in terms of how our legislation is designed.

I am fully aware of the various non-profit or civil initiatives being taken. Pontus Andersson mentions one of them. There are also media investigations where adults are used in contacts to expose individuals who are seeking to be able to commit this type of crime against children. It is an investigation that is, of course, welcome and important in our society and which complements everything we do and can do in terms of legislation.

I believe, however, that it would be going very far to make this type of contact criminal regardless of which adult is on the other side.

However, I think there is a legitimate question that Pontus Andersson raises, namely this: If the police, the state through its police, were to engage in crime provocation in an organized manner—should this not then be punishable? It is one of the questions that we have said and agreed that we shall look at and investigate. I am fully aware that it would be a rather significant departure from the model that our legal system is based on, namely that the punishable is linked to a real crime victim.

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

Pontus Andersson (SD)

Mr. Speaker! I thank Gunnar Strömmer for the answer. I can state that the Minister takes the issue seriously, and I truly appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker! I see problems with the current legislation - perhaps above all that the law enforcement authorities need to be given the tools required to apprehend dangerous people before they commit serious crimes against children, but also that the current legislation leads to citizens, on good grounds, choosing to take matters into their own hands.

Many have directed criticism at, for example, Dumpen's working method, that the individuals who are exposed are hung out for public viewing. The reason why this is considered necessary, however, is that the individuals cannot be convicted under current legislation because no child has actually been subjected to - yet - despite the fact that these people obviously want to subject, and believe they are about to subject, a child to a serious crime. Since these then cannot be convicted, it is considered important to warn the public about these obviously dangerous people. In many cases they can be sports leaders; in one case it concerned a principal at a school. In that case, there is a point in actually telling the public who they are.

The criticism is not about failing to convict enough people. Often, the criticism is about the well-being of the victims. That is a bit where we often end up in Sweden: One feels sorry for the perpetrators. We had an example where a person blamed that he had gone through a divorce and ended up on the wrong track. We must assume that the majority who end up in that situation do not suddenly choose to commit abuse against children. I find that type of sob story from perpetrators very difficult to stomach.

What I care about, and what I believe politics should care about, is primarily the well-being of children - not the perpetrators. This very issue has developed into a societal problem, and I therefore see it as the task of politics to work towards protecting children through legislation.

Many children who have been subjected to sexual abuse develop mental ill-health. It is their situation that makes me sorrowful, not how a presumptive rapist feels after being shamed on the internet. Here, we all have a responsibility to choose where our sympathies should lie. In many cases, the perpetrator needs care, clearly, but above all, I mean that a penalty is needed that keeps the person away from society for a period of time.

The Minister and I do not agree on whether an attempted crime should be introduced. However, that provocative measures should be codified in law is part of the Tidö Agreement and something that will probably be able to be of help in the work of catching sex offenders on the internet. But every day that passes is a day where the work to catch them is not moving fast enough. When can we, therefore, expect to have provocative measures in place in the legislation?

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

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Let me first, on an overarching level, truly agree that a shift is required in Swedish crime policy. This has for decades been characterized by a very large focus on precisely the perpetrator. There, we have, as a very important principled starting point, said that we must achieve a shift where the perpetrator moves into the background and where the crime victim and, depending on what crime we are talking about, also the surrounding society's need for protection against serious crime, move into the foreground in a completely different way.

The victim's perspective is naturally completely central regardless of which crime we are talking about, but it is clear that it feels particularly pressing when the victims are vulnerable children. Unfortunately, there is far too much crime affecting children, and this is perhaps the most despicable crime that children are subjected to.

That perspective leads to the fact that we have every reason to make all the legislation affecting these crimes - including the grooming crime, which also criminalizes attempts to establish a connection with a child when the person on the other side really is the child, the presumed crime victim - even sharper and more severe. That the penalties for this type of crime should also be tightened should be included in the adjustment regarding the sentences that the coalition parties behind the Tidö Agreement agree upon.

At the same time, the crime victim perspective also points out the crux of the issue that Pontus Andersson raises. The cases that Pontus Andersson mentions have in common that, on the other side of the online contact, or wherever it has taken place, there is no crime victim. The child is not there; instead, there is an adult who has pretended to be a child. This gives rise to several other questions regarding how that situation should be tackled in the legislation.

I believe everyone agrees that the person making these contacts is still engaging in atrocities. But our legislation is based, as stated, on the fact that there must be a presumptive crime victim at the other end of a contact for our legislation, with all the force it possesses, to kick in.

I find it very difficult to imagine that we would end up in a situation where a contact of this type, regardless of who the adult is - a journalist, a representative of a non-profit initiative, or someone else - would be punishable, even if we think it is despicable. On the other hand, there is room to discuss crime provocation carried out by the state through the police and what the consequences of a crime provoked by the police should be.

We have said that we shall investigate those questions together. We have not anticipated the conclusions in what we have agreed upon, but we have said that we shall investigate this without blinkers and that a particular perspective in that approach shall be precisely sexual offenses.

The question is therefore justified. It is also quite difficult. I believe that the trade-offs that are to be made now must be made in an extraordinarily careful manner so that we land correctly in this pressing issue.

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

Pontus Andersson (SD)

Mr. Speaker! We can state that the Minister and I do not agree on the existence or non-existence of the crime of preparation.

However, we can state that current legislation leads to citizens taking matters into their own hands because today's legislation fails to convict those who set off with the belief that they are about to commit an offense against a child - a child that, therefore, does not exist.

Above all, we can state that the current legislation means that every month that passes without changes is a lost month for those who want to ensure that pedophiles end up behind bars. The big losers are all the children who are exposed and will be exposed.

What the minister and I, on the other hand, agree on is the Tidö Agreement and not least the eleven pages that deal with Swedish crime policy. It will mean major changes in the entire crime policy area and most likely make Sweden a safer country.

The Tidö Agreement is what the Minister and I have agreed upon. Beyond that, there are numerous issues where SD is pushing for changed legislation on its own. That one should be able to judge a person for preparation for contact with children for sexual purposes is one such issue.

This question is indeed important. There are many children in Sweden who suffer, and I mean that we need to use all available resources for preventive work so that persons who are willing to commit abuse against children are caught before they get an outlet for their fantasies against a real child.

Society needs to stop these people before it is too late. That, I mean, could have been done with changed legislation in this area.

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

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! I want to start by thanking Pontus Andersson for raising this extraordinarily important issue. I have great respect for Pontus Andersson's deep commitment regarding both the political issues that these cases bring to the fore and, of course, the appalling crime that far too many children are subjected to in this way.

We are nevertheless in agreement on very much, for example that attempts at such abuses shall also be criminalized, which is the case through the grooming offense. If someone contacts a child with the intent to commit an abuse, this is punishable even if the abuse does not take place. This is extraordinarily important, and I am open to making these rules even sharper and tougher.

The specific question that Pontus Andersson raises concerns whether it should also be criminal if the person on the other side, that is, the crime victim, is not a child but an adult who pretends to be a child. I find it very easy to feel respect for the significance of even that question. Not least morally, we can also be very upset about that situation.

Then there is the question of whether it should also be punishable – whether provocations should lead to criminal liability. This is one of the issues we have said we will look at within the framework of the Tidö Agreement. In that case, it is not about criminal provocation carried out by an individual, but by the police. Should this be permitted at all and, if it is to be, for which crimes? We have said that we will look particularly at sexual offenses.

Let us conclude in agreement and say that this is the most heinous crime one can imagine against children. We have a shared responsibility to do everything we can so that the protection is strengthened.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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