Response to interpellation 2022/23:180 on the conditions of employees in the Prison and Probation Service
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M argues that the government has significantly strengthened the appropriations and that Kriminalvården has received the funds they requested for planned expansion 1. 2 M assures that Kriminalvården will receive resources in good time to ensure growth and improved conditions for the employees 2. 3 M argues that the policy should back up the agency and that one must be deliberate about what incarcerated persons should spend their time on 3. 4 M wants to stand up for the importance of harsh punishments and incapacitation 4. 5 S argues that the employees' well-being is crucial and that the government does not provide concrete information on improved working conditions 5. 6 S argues that it is worrying that many employees want to leave Kriminalvården due to salary, working hours, and work environment 6. 7 S argues that the government risks breaking Kriminalvården if it does not receive the right resources 7. S argues that the government is now putting extra great pressure on welfare by not investing enough in money.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Good morning! I am pleased to see such a man- and woman-strong legislative lineup this Friday morning in the chamber!
Sanna Backeskog has asked me how I view Seko's report and what measures I am prepared to take so that the employees' working conditions will be improved. Sanna Backeskog has also asked me how I view Kriminalvården's possibilities for competence supply in the long term and if I intend to work to ensure that it is secured.
Serious organized crime threatens the open democratic society. The government is therefore implementing powerful measures to reverse the development. This involves, among other things, more police but also better and more efficient tools for the law enforcement authorities. Together with upcoming sentencing increases, it means that the pressure on the Prison and Probation Service will also continue to be high.
The Prison and Probation Service therefore needs to be significantly expanded. The agency has been tasked with calculating an overview of what capacity is needed to implement or meet the reforms in the Tidö Agreement. The appropriations have already been strengthened significantly, and the Prison and Probation Service has received the funds it requested to manage the already planned expansions. From 2025 onwards, the government will further strengthen the agency, and together with previous reinforcements, the amount totals 4.5 billion kronor. The additions give the Prison and Probation Service the conditions to continue the work with a long-term and permanent expansion of capacity in detention, prison, and probation.
The Prison and Probation Service's important mission requires a good and long-term sustainable supply of personnel. All prison and probation staff must simultaneously have a safe and secure working environment. The Prison and Probation Service has therefore been tasked with submitting an implementation plan aimed at ensuring the agency's competence supply over the next ten years.
Sekos report highlights important issues regarding the working environment within the Prison and Probation Service. The responsibility for the working environment lies ultimately with the employer, and the employer shall, according to law, take the measures required to ensure that all employees have a safe and secure working environment. The employer shall also cooperate with safety representatives.
The expansion of the Prison and Probation Service, and thus also the supply of competence and the working environment for the employees, is of great importance for the government's initiatives against organized crime to be effective. The government will have a major focus on ensuring that the Prison and Probation Service has good conditions to fulfill its mission in all these areas.
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! Seko recently released a report on the crisis in the Prison and Probation Service which shows what effects lack of space and overcrowding have on the working environment. I am pleased that the Minister for Justice considers the report to be important, as it describes serious problems.
For those who are watching the debate but have not read Seko's report, I would like to highlight some parts that the investigation shows.
57 percent of the respondents considered that the Prison and Probation Service has small chances of succeeding in its social mission. Only 7 percent consider that the chances are large. This is a decrease of 19 percentage points since 2018, when 26 percent considered that the chances were large.
78 percent say that unauthorized influence from inmates occurs at their workplace. Of those who work at a facility, 67 percent state that they have been subjected to threats and violence at work during the last year. Of those who work at detention centers, the figure is 55 percent.
Half of those who work in prisons say that solitary confinement occurs daily, or almost daily, in situations where it is not supposed to occur. Of those who work in detention centers, 45 percent answer the same.
Madam Speaker! I would also like to highlight two important quotes from the report.
The first thing is: "Staff shortages and staff turnover. It must become more staff-dense. The lack of space takes a toll on both staff and inmates. Then it is difficult to do quality work so that the inmates can fare better. The wage conditions also make it difficult to retain colleagues. Despite the important social mission and the risks we expose ourselves to every day just by going to work, it simply does not pay off in the wallet."
A quote from another colleague is: "Inmates who are serving time for serious drug offenses and gang members sit and recruit on shared wards."
We also know that the overoccupancies create a great deal of frustration among the inmates, which increases the number of incidents. We know that the staff are constantly forced to review security classifications and downgrade inmates who, without the lack of space, would definitely have been placed in departments with higher security classifications. We also know that it is the important program activities that often risk being scaled back when the workload is too high. We know that the lack of space means that people are forced to convert previous meeting rooms into residential rooms. We know that in some places, they have even been forced to remove specially furnished rooms adapted to receive visits from children in order to make room for more inmates.
The Minister of Justice's colleague Lars Beckman from Moderaterna participated in an interview in P4 Gävleborg this autumn regarding children in Sweden's detention centers who do not receive the isolation-breaking measures to which they are entitled. Lars Beckman stated that it was a great failure, and he even compared today's situation to keeping animals in cages.
This is not a worthy working environment, neither for employees nor for managers.
Madam Speaker! Based on the above-described alarm reports regarding an acute crisis in the Prison and Probation Service, I wonder if the Minister for Justice considers it sufficient to sit still in the boat and wait until 2025 for extra resource reinforcements, or if the Minister for Justice has reassuring news to give to the country's prison officers and other employees who are already on their knees today.
Ardalan Shekarabi (S)
Madam Speaker and honorable Minister of Justice! Frustration is growing within the Social Democratic parliamentary group regarding the governance of agencies within the Ministry of Justice's area. It is a serious situation, and there are values that must be prioritized over party-political interests. We who sit here intend to initiate a process where we continuously pursue a dialogue with the Minister of Justice, also in this chamber, regarding the need for him to stand up for Swedish public administration, for the agencies that fall under the government, and not least for the Ministry of Justice's agencies.
The situation in the correctional services is very serious. It has to do with criminal justice reforms that have been implemented during the last 10-15 years. It was first during the period 2002-2006 that we began to see a series of increased sentences. During the last two parliamentary terms, the increased sentences have continued in the form of longer prison sentences. The Government invested in the correctional services during the last parliamentary term. But we believe that if the Tidö Agreement's proposals are to be implemented, for which there appears to be support in the form of a majority in the chamber, the prison sentences will increase dramatically in the relatively near future. In that case, it is required that historically substantial investments are made in the correctional services - not in three years, not in four years or in two years, but here and now.
The messages we received in the budget bill bore witness to the fact that the Ministry of Finance had triumphed over the Ministry of Justice. They were not reassuring messages for the Prison and Probation Service. Now, the Prison and Probation Service has been given a mandate to return to the government with information on what is required for the Prison and Probation Service to manage the enormous challenges that the agency faces. Shortly, the Minister for Justice will receive the Prison and Probation Service's report. What we expect from the Social Democratic parliamentary group is that the Minister for Justice stands up for his agency and ensures that the Prison and Probation Service receives the conditions required so that we do not break down the part of Swedish criminal policy that works well.
The Prison and Probation Service has world-class qualities. It has relatively low recidivism rates. But if we make mistakes now, if we do not invest in the Prison and Probation Service in time, it will become a very serious situation that can lead to the working environment for those who work in the Prison and Probation Service deteriorating further and serious problems with growing recidivism rates for people who leave the Prison and Probation Service.
Madam Speaker! The Minister for Justice must focus on the authority. It is required that the Minister for Justice delivers the resources that are needed. As a former procurement lawyer, I can say that decisions made by the government here and now do not necessarily lead to new institutions in two years. The authority shall plan and must be given the conditions for the economic planning. Then it shall carry out procurements. Procurements can be appealed. We both know the enormous deficiencies that exist in the system, which lead to delays. In practice, a well-intentioned decision from the government's side can be realized in five to seven years. It depends on the procedures that exist for public procurement and which are required to build new institutions.
The Social Democratic parliamentary group urges the Minister of Justice to take these issues most seriously. We do not want a development in crime policy that involves harsher penalties but increased recidivism. Now, the Minister of Justice also wants to move forward with proposals that younger people should be imprisoned. They will experience a university in criminality instead of correctional care.
Mattias Vepsä (S)
Madam Speaker! Good morning, Mr. Minister! I could not help but get up early, come to the chamber and try to get answers to some questions regarding the criminal justice system.
I listened, like many others, to a documentary about Tidaholmsanstalten on Sveriges Radio this week. The similarities in the political landscape are great. At that time, it was a Moderate-led government ruling in a Sweden where the gaps were increasing and where we faced enormous problems. Today, it is a Moderate-led government ruling, and Sweden faces enormous problems.
In the documentary, the prisoners who participated in the uprising and in the riots that followed because many people had been kept close together under conditions that were not okay are interviewed. It was a direct effect of a policy that focused on one side of the problem, namely increased penalties, incapacitation, and that more people should go into prison.
Now I experience, and many with me, that we have a government that tends to see one side of the problem. We share the view that the serious crimes are harmful to our society. Therefore, we also have a history of a government that has introduced a number of increased penalties, which even my colleagues have pointed out. Furthermore, we see that the proportion of sentenced prison years has grown. In that development, more resources were invested to expand the correctional services.
I become worried when I hear a tone expressed both inside and outside the chamber, on social media or in debate articles – not always from the minister's party colleagues, even though the harsh tone is there too, but primarily among the representatives of the coalition party Sverigedemokraterna – regarding ideas and thoughts about redirecting Swedish correctional services and criminal justice policy and glancing a bit at medieval punishments, for example water and bread or punishments of humiliation for children and young people who commit crimes.
That development is medieval, and we now have a modern welfare society that must ensure that even those who have committed crimes during their time in prison have a right to rehabilitation and that the time in prison shall be of high quality so that it is possible to return to society. If one sits for their entire life, that time must function so that we fulfill human rights with a prison system that delivers.
I amused myself by doing a search in the Tidö Agreement. 60 times the word punishment appeared. 2 times the word rehabilitation appeared. One time it concerned cancer care, and rehabilitation is obviously an important part of the healthcare issue. The other time in the health insurance, and that is also pleasing. The word preventive appeared 5 times.
Is this evidence that we have a government that sees one side of the solution or of the problem? But I wonder if Gunnar Strömmer and the government can also see the problems that can arise if one unilaterally – as my colleagues have pointed out – only tightens the penalties and puts pressure on Kriminalvården. The problems that then arise primarily affect the staff in the operations and the inmates. They are not given the right and the opportunity to make a transition in life and make a choice. With that, the number of recidivism risks increasing and the anxiety rising.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! It feels wonderful to see this legislative lineup and a commitment to the issues this early Friday morning. I gladly facilitate the conversation if I can contribute to venting a little bit of the Social Democratic parliamentary group's frustration.
The Seko report is a magnificent conclusion on the work environment after eight years of Social Democratic rule. It is nevertheless you who gather here today who are responsible for where we find ourselves. It is you who have made the trade-offs between increased penalties, resource allocation, and work environment issues.
I take the Seko report very seriously, as a starting point for the broad-based reorganization of policy that must now take place. I see this as an extraordinarily central task for my part. If the Social Democrats want to be involved in that work, I welcome it, but we have a number of experiences to draw from the years behind us, not least those that are expressed in Seko's report.
Let us begin with the economy. It is quite obvious that the Prison and Probation Service must be dimensioned according to the politics at large. As far as I know, the Social Democrats did not add significantly more resources to the Prison and Probation Service in their budget than the government did in its. I do not know if there are other considerations behind the Social Democrats' budget, and I would gladly be made aware of them. Obviously, we have made the same economic analysis at this point.
There is also no doubt that the Prison and Probation Service has received exactly the resources one points to, based on the development that is envisioned given where the policy lies now. We are ahead of the curve by already now, long before upcoming sentencing increases are in place, giving the Prison and Probation Service a mandate to calculate what consequences it will have. The basis will arrive this autumn.
I can assure the interpellator with confidence that the Prison and Probation Service will receive the resources required, and in good time, to be able to ensure the growth that is crucial for the Prison and Probation Service as such, but naturally also for the employees and their conditions to do a good job.
I will come to the employee issues; I will just take them via the Tidaholm experience.
It is clear that there is a certain dramaturgy in what Mattias Vepsä brings up. But the great experience of the Tidaholm incident was another shift in policy. It was to ensure secure facilities. It was the security issue that was the great lesson – that we previously had a criminal justice system where it was far too easy to cause riots and far too easy to escape. It meant enormous security risks for the employees.
I was at Hallanstalten in Södertälje as recently as the day before yesterday for a whole day. It greatly pleases me to see the way Swedish correctional services work with security issues and that we really seem to have learned lessons from the far too vague and soft stance on security issues that prevailed previously.
I want to address the employees - I will get the opportunity to come back again - and just underline that regarding all of the testimonies that appear in Seko's report, we all as political decision-makers and senior officials in authorities have reason to take them with the utmost seriousness. All the shortcomings that are highlighted, the risks of unauthorized influence, threats and violence, and risky solo work - none of that is acceptable. All of it must be addressed through political decisions, through additional resources, and through agency management. I am prepared to conduct discussions and act on these issues every day of the week.
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! The Prison and Probation Service is an agency that has made an impressive journey over the last decades. Security has increased significantly, and the fact that more prisons have been expanded across the country has contributed to more jobs. The Prison and Probation Service's work with Bättre ut has proven to be successful and unique in the world.
The goal is that the clients, during their prison sentence, shall receive tools to manage to live a life free from crime and be able to contribute to society after serving their sentence. When I visited the prison in Gävle recently, real success stories were shared about the Prison and Probation Service's successful treatment programs and about people who had served their sentence, done their homework, received treatment for their addiction, and then been able to function fully in society and in working life.
The key for the Prison and Probation Service to succeed in its socially important mission is, of course, the employees. It is not an easy job to be a prison officer. A prison officer needs to have good judgment, very good security competence, and strong personal integrity. But it also requires good pedagogical ability, a motivating approach, and a humanistic view of people.
The training to become a correctional officer is 24 weeks long, and the training and experience are seen as attractive within many industries. But working closely with clients and making adequate risk assessments while simultaneously creating successful treatment plans naturally requires long practical experience. That the employees enjoy and feel appreciated at work is therefore extremely important for the Prison and Probation Service to be able to maintain its important social mission in a satisfactory manner.
Madam Speaker! Those who seek employment in the correctional services are people who enjoy working with other people and who want to contribute to ensuring that the inmates come out better and can contribute to society. I can therefore sense that many employees feel uneasy when the largest party in the government basis talks about "water and bread" and that the Correctional Services shall change its name to the Punishment Authority.
A long-time colleague whom I met recently said something like this: This rhetoric from the Sverigedemokraterna scares me. I want to work with the guys and help them tackle their problems. The penal system - what is that name, and what kind of detention would it mean? It doesn't feel safe in the least. I don't want to work there at all, and I find it difficult to see that they will be able to employ any of my colleagues there.
Madam Speaker! I do not feel that I am receiving any concrete information regarding the employees' working conditions and work environment and how they can be improved. The Minister for Justice also mentioned that there is reason to return to that.
I therefore wonder if the Minister for Justice now wants to take the opportunity to describe his view of what role the employees of the Prison and Probation Service have and how their mandate is described - and if the Minister for Justice has ambitions to meet the Sweden Democrats and is considering a name change to Straffverket.
Ardalan Shekarabi (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for Justice for the answer - even though the Minister for Justice, after only five months, has already adopted the attitude that everything is the other government's fault.
We do not sit on the truth. The government does not sit on the truth. My point is that if Swedish crime policy is to be effective and humane, reduce crime and increase people's safety, cooperation in the Riksdag is required. Then the Minister for Justice cannot continue to choose the path of silence when the government's coalition partner attacks the foundations of Swedish correctional policy; instead, the Minister for Justice must turn to this entire chamber and engage in dialogue with all parties on how we stand up for a correctional system that actually delivers.
Does the Minister of Justice want the final balance sheet in four years to be that the part of Swedish criminal policy that worked well, namely the prison and probation service, has been torn apart? That is exactly the risk we see now. If the Prison and Probation Service does not receive the right conditions, the right resources, and a Minister of Justice who is prepared to take the fight for the Swedish prison and probation service when there are people in the coalition party who continuously attack the foundations of that policy, there are risks.
I urge the Minister of Justice to distance himself from the very serious attacks we are now seeing from the coalition partner, not only against Swedish correctional policy but also against the foundations of the Swedish constitution when it comes to government administration, the independence of authorities, and the independence of the courts.
We will not safeguard the Swedish administrative model by changing legislation, by changing the constitution. We safeguard the Swedish constitution by standing up for the people who make Swedish public administration possible, namely all the employees, and their integrity and protection in accordance with the Swedish constitution. I urge the Minister for Justice to work on this.
Mattias Vepsä (S)
Madam Speaker! That was exactly my point – that we should learn lessons from the incident at Tidaholmsanstalten, where the view on the correctional services was changed, the staff density was strengthened, it was ensured that there was a clearer division into departments, it was ensured that not too many prisoners stayed in the same recreational activity, and so on. Resources were therefore invested more, and it was ensured that the staff had better employment conditions and that there were better opportunities for the correctional services to work with the other mission – not just to keep people locked up but also to ensure that when they leave there, they do not choose a criminal path in life.
With that said, we have also seen that the number of recidivism has decreased from the high figures of the 90s to something lower today. We naturally want to continue to push back recidivism, but that requires looking at the whole picture.
It is clear that we can stand here and talk about the budget and how we have invested our money. We had such a discussion the last time we stood in the chamber. I was then quite taken aback by the view the government has on this now, in these times of high inflation and high energy prices and an enormous pressure on welfare activities which many times is directed towards children in particularly vulnerable areas. There should be school, cultural school, youth centers, social activities and opportunities to support families. It is precisely those activities that the Moderates and the government are now putting extra pressure on when one does not invest money in welfare to the extent that SKR warns is necessary and that the country's municipalities repeatedly alarm about.
You chose a path, Madam Speaker. You lowered the tax for the very richest by 13 billion and instead placed demands on welfare. This leads to a development in society with deeper divides, where violent criminals can find opportunities to lure more young people into serious crime. We chose, conversely, to double the welfare investment.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Let me first address the questions concerning the employees of the Prison and Probation Service, who, overall, do a fantastic job. This applies, in my opinion, to everyone, from managers all the way down in the organization to local caretakers, staff in catering, and whatever it may be. I also perceive that there is a great dedication and a very great pride in the work that is performed. I assume that they also experience the citizens' unreserved support and appreciation for this.
Since there is no doubt whatsoever that the pressure the Prison and Probation Service is subjected to, as a consequence of a societal development where more and more people receive long prison sentences for very serious crimes, has not been matched by corresponding investments regarding the expansion of the Prison and Probation Service. It is clear that this also creates a pressure on the employees.
The problems highlighted in the report that the interpellator points to are all an expression of this. Each and every one of these problems must be taken most seriously. I spoke extensively about this with the Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service as recently as the day before yesterday during a morning visit in Hall. It is something that we will have a continued dialogue about between the agency and the Government Offices. It is also something that is already being addressed and will be addressed in a clear way through the instruments of government that the government possesses.
With this said, it is naturally always so - and I think it is important to say this to the employees - that the employer has the full responsibility for this. Then, of course, the policy must back up its agencies so that there are good conditions to conduct an operation that ensures a good working environment for the employees.
When it comes to cooperation, I have no problems at all cooperating with anyone when it concerns the possibilities of pushing back the gross organized crime, which has now escalated to levels that are completely historical not only from a Swedish perspective but also in an international comparison. There is no doubt whatsoever that if we do as we have done until now, it will also go as it has gone until now. This applies to the criminal policy and all its branches, including the management of the Prison and Probation Service.
The notion that this government would only see one side of the coin does not become any truer just because it is repeated in every exchange of words we have in this chamber. It is quite obvious that with longer sentences we will need to be even more deliberate when it comes to what should be done with people who are locked up - what they should spend their time on and how we can do everything to improve the conditions so that they come out on the other side as better people with good tools to tackle their lives and embark on an honest path of life. This will not only be the direction for this government, but we will ensure that we as a country and as a correctional service become much better than we have been so far regarding those parts.
Regarding the issues of resources and responsibility, I have no need at all to stand here and quibble about who is responsible for what in a historical perspective. Perhaps I thought it was an appropriate response, given that several of the participants in this debate wanted to assert that the major work environment problems we see in the Prison and Probation Service today and the challenges we see regarding growth issues would be a result of the policy that was or was not pursued during the last two or three months. The reason I brought up the economy was that one of my colleagues addressed exactly that question.
I can assure you all that I am open to cooperation every day of the week, for the right reforms that lead the country and the Prison and Probation Service in the right direction. This can well be said to be a reasonable starting point for the continued cooperation.
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! I very much look forward to discussing these issues further together with the Minister for Justice and the Government.
I note that the Minister for Justice emphasizes that the responsibility for the work environment ultimately lies with the employer – a position that we in the Social Democrats generally share. But as the Minister for Justice himself says, it is the Minister for Justice who is responsible for the agency and now has the opportunity to provide the agency with the conditions to be a good employer.
Seko writes in its report that one in three employees at the institution considers it completely ruled out or not particularly likely that they will continue working within the Prison and Probation Service in two years. This is very worrying statistics that requires action here and now, today. Salary is the most common reason for wanting to leave the Prison and Probation Service, followed by working hours and work environment.
Sekos report concludes with a series of demands to improve conditions for staff in the Prison and Probation Service and to ensure the supply of competence. This includes, among other things, wages and working hours, education and competence development, a stop to all client-facing solo work, and that the politicians take responsibility for keeping the entire justice chain together so that what we do on one side does not have serious consequences on the other side.
Madam Speaker! It is certain that one or another of the 14,000 employees within the Prison and Probation Service is watching this now or in retrospect. I therefore want to give the Minister for Justice the chance to turn directly to them. My final question to the Minister for Justice is: What does the Minister for Justice want to say to Sweden's employees within the Prison and Probation Service? I also did not receive an answer as to whether the Minister for Justice is prepared to meet with the Sweden Democrats regarding the view on the Prison and Probation Service as a penal system.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Sanna Backeskog, for a good debate on a very pressing issue!
If I am given the opportunity to turn directly to the employees of the Prison and Probation Service, the first thing I want to say is that they should be upright and proud of the important work they perform in the service and interest of the entire Swedish society. I also think they should be assured that they are seen and that the problems they see in their everyday lives, at their workplaces, are also seen, as I perceive it both by the employer and by the politics which very much is the principal for all our agencies, including the Prison and Probation Service.
Naturally, none of what is raised in this report, whether it concerns security issues, dangerous cooperation, threats and violence, or pressure of an improper nature, is something that a decent society can accept within the walls, fences, and gates of Swedish criminal justice. It is a very legitimate expectation from the employees in Swedish criminal justice that these problems are taken most seriously and met in a very concrete way.
When it comes to the Prison and Probation Service, no name change of the agency is relevant. But the deeper question is what we have the Prison and Probation Service for. There, I want to stand up for the importance of harsh punishments and incapacitation. This is also a very important part of a decent society. My firm opinion is that, in the long term, we must shift the focus from the perpetrator to the crime victim and to society's need for protection against serious crime. This also means that more people will need to be locked up for longer periods.
With this said, we shall of course work just as methodically regarding what we do with people during the time they are locked up. The ambition shall at all times be that people shall come out on the other side as better people, with better conditions to grab hold of an honest life.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.