Response to interpellation 2023/24:265 on special deportation centers
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M believes that the correctional services must be adapted to increased densification and that resources should be prioritized effectively 1. M emphasizes the importance of recidivism prevention measures for those to be reintegrated, while the security aspect justifies meaningful occupation for all 1 2. M wants a high level of ambition for expansion, leasing abroad, and digitalization 3. M argues that differentiation at the category level is relevant since foreigners to be deported do not need reintegration 2 3 4. SD considers that it is not necessary for foreigners to be deported to receive the same standard as other detainees 5. SD argues that it is wasted money to offer a high standard to persons who are not to be reintegrated 5 6. SD wants to investigate how costs can be lowered through a lower standard for deportation candidates 6 7. SD considers that it lacks support among the Swedish population that persons who behave grossly poorly receive a generous content before deportation 7. SD considers that it is justified for the correctional services to make a distinction between foreign and Swedish citizens and offer the lowest standard for foreigners to be deported 7.
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! Adam Marttinen has asked me how I view the introduction of a special type of deportation detention center which, through the specific purpose of deportation, adapts the content to the most basic beyond executing the prison sentence in detention.
I begin by stating that the reorganization of criminal policy that the government is now carrying out will result in more people being imprisoned and doing so for longer periods than today. The increasing influx of convicted persons necessitates priorities and a review of working methods. This involves, among other things, adapting operations to an increased degree of densification, including in the form of double occupancy. The starting point is that the time in prison shall be filled with the right interventions for the right person. Generally speaking, the interest in recidivism prevention measures is to a greater extent relevant for those who, after serving a prison sentence, are to be reintegrated into Swedish society. At the same time, there are other considerations that justify meaningful occupation, in particular the safety of both employees and inmates.
The Prison and Probation Service has, during the autumn, reported on a mandate to further develop the work on preventing recidivism and there identified that it is possible to achieve a more efficient operation if the recidivism-preventing interventions are differentiated to a greater extent by focusing on the right interventions for the right client. It is important that the Prison and Probation Service prioritizes existing resources in as effective a way as possible, especially in a situation with a strained occupancy situation.
To enable the government's reorganization of crime policy, the government is working on all fronts to increase the number of places in both detention centers and prisons, while simultaneously reviewing other possibilities to free up places. For example, we have commissioned an inquiry examining the possibility of leasing prison places abroad. Furthermore, we are working to increase the number of transfers of detainees so that they can serve their prison sentence in their home country and to increase the efficiency of these processes. This is particularly important if the criminal has been sentenced to both imprisonment and deportation.
It is a fact that the expansion of the Prison and Probation Service started much too late. I want to emphasize that this is in no way something the authority should be blamed for, but rather the previous government. Added to this are a number of other factors that increase the pressure on the Prison and Probation Service: societal developments with the system-threatening serious organized crime, new tools for crime fighting that provide the police and prosecutors with the conditions to solve and prosecute more crimes, and the appropriate and necessary tightening of sentences that are made to strengthen the redress of crime victims and society's need for protection.
All this naturally entails challenges for the Prison and Probation Service, and the government is determined to handle those challenges in a good way in close cooperation with the authority. I am convinced that a substantial expansion and new priorities and new ways of working can be implemented while a content of high quality can be safeguarded.
Adam Marttinen (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister of Justice, to the question! The question concerns, as is known, parts of the expansion that the correctional services face and the thoughts and ideas that may arise regarding how we should develop the correctional services in our country in the future. There are great opportunities when we expand to also change the content of our institutions. And as I somewhat pointed out in the question that I posed to the Minister of Justice, a very large proportion of those who are detained in Swedish institutions are foreign citizens.
In all the good work that Sverigedemokraterna does together with the government, there are views from the Sverigedemokraterna side on whether it is really necessary that all foreigners who are held in our facilities should receive everything that other detainees receive in our facilities.
The purpose of us having a fairly good standard in our detention centers is, hopefully, that all those serving a sentence will emerge as better people and be able to be reintegrated into Swedish society. That very need does not exist when it concerns those persons who are to be deported. We also agree that more of the foreigners who are held in our detention centers should be deported, which means that there will be a larger category of detainees in our detention centers who lack the need to be readapted to Swedish society.
My question to the Minister of Justice is quite concrete. The content of our institutions is, of course, adapted to individual needs and circumstances. It can be education. It can be treatment. It can be other things. It can be other forms of employment. It can, for example, involve contact with society and contact with relatives who help the inmates.
When it comes to those who are foreigners and who are to be deported, as is known, the need for readaptation and actually everything else is lacking. Not least, there will lack acceptance from Swedish taxpayers that one has a rather costly content for persons who are to be deported and not return to Sweden.
The question is therefore quite concrete and limited to the people who are held in Swedish institutions and who are to be deported. Do we need to have a high standard for those individuals who are to be deported from our country? Can the Government imagine a possibility of creating a special type of institution that adapts the content to the most basic level, in addition to serving time in the institution, for those people who are to be deported?
I think the answer so far is somewhat vague, but I think the question is quite concrete and should be able to be answered.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I want to begin by confirming the analysis. It is clear that different arrivals have different needs. This applies in particular to the need for different measures aimed at promoting a reintegration into Swedish society.
If you are a foreign citizen and have been sentenced to a prison term combined with a deportation, it is clear that it is not a question of reintegration into Swedish society. From a reintegration perspective, it also naturally means that the need for those measures does not exist in the same way as it does for other inmates.
The aspect that I nevertheless want to highlight and which I believe is real is the security aspect. The employment in the facilities has at least two purposes.
One thing is, of course, to prepare inmates for a life outside the prison walls through, as Adam Marttinen also touches upon, education, vocational training and treatment – that is, to use the time in prison in such a way that one at least increases the possibility of reintegration into society and reduces the risk of recidivism.
The second thing is, as said, the security aspect. We know that it is important to have an occupation that allows security issues to be met in a good way, and this applies to the security for both inmates and staff. In short, one does not want to build up pressure cookers in these institutions, but rather one should offer a meaningful existence so that the need for safety and security can be met, not least for the employees.
With that said, I also want to confirm Adam Martin's point that differentiation is significant, both at the individual level and, one could imagine, at the category level.
Now, we will, with joint forces, enable a massive expansion of the correctional services. It is about an increase from 9,000 to 27,000 new prison places over ten years. A closer look at the planning that the correctional services are now presenting shows that it involves major changes regarding how the correctional services will look in the future. Not least, there is talk of very large prisons, and it is clear that within the framework of these prisons, it will also be possible to conduct operations to an even higher degree differentiated based on different categories of inmates.
I am not prepared to give a straight yes to Adam Martin's direct question about whether I am prepared to work for special facilities for this category. However, I would like to continue a discussion on whether volume and large facilities also enable a differentiation not only at the individual level but also at the category level. I would like to continue that discussion in light of the question that has been asked today.
Adam Marttinen (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for further answers!
Even if one cannot give a straight answer to the question today, I think, in addition to the good work already being done with the development of the correctional services, that one can still give an indication if one thinks it is reasonable that people who are to be deported are managed within a correctional service with a fairly high daily cost in comparison with comparable countries in Europe. It is well known that we have a high standard in Swedish prisons, and from a taxpayer's point of view, it may seem like completely wasted money that such a high standard is provided to people who do not have a need for what the higher standard is intended for.
Perhaps it also lies somewhere in the direction of the question whether one should review the content generally from a cost perspective. Is it possible to make general efficiencies at our institutions? Can one imagine that certain types of inmates receive a poorer content, for example based on an assessment of whether they can be receptive? It is a waste of money if people who show no interest in participating are offered and undergo treatments.
One should be able to investigate the issue broadly and then also include the question of a specific category of namely foreign citizens who are to be deported. Could it be of any interest at all for the government to look at the question of the cost aspect, how one can reduce the correctional services' expenses generally per inmate and perhaps in a broader perspective also look at the category of foreigners who are to be deported?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I think we absolutely should have an open and bold discussion about the content of the correctional services. If one takes note of the underlying documents that the correctional services are now presenting regarding the expansion over a ten-year period, one also sees that that expansion largely builds on a reassessment of the correctional services' methods in various parts.
When it comes to the work on preventing recidivism, I would like to take it in this order: The first thing is that I think we should have a high level of ambition when it comes to the work on preventing recidivism in prison, because there is such a strong public interest in using the time as productively as possible. That means, I can imagine, that in various respects we should raise the level of ambition and review whether there is proven experience, proven methods, and best practice in different places that we should implement in Swedish correctional services to get better figures regarding the recidivism statistics. That is one of my starting points.
The second thing is differentiation and thinking individually. I perceive that the correctional services do this to a large extent, but perhaps they will need to do so to an even greater extent in light of the priorities that must be made when the pressure on the correctional services increases to such a high degree. From that perspective, I believe that one can certainly discuss both at the individual level and at the category level.
The category issue is relevant for other reasons as well. We had a joint press conference a few days ago regarding the investigation that the government has commissioned with the support of the Sverigedemokraterna to review the possibility of renting out prison places abroad. Those who can manage to move past the somewhat slogan-heavy day-to-day political debate and really delve into these directives will see that this is a very serious approach.
We know that there are both positive and negative experiences to be drawn from other countries such as Norway, Denmark and Belgium, which in different ways and with different degrees of success have succeeded with this. A relevant question is, of course, the question of if we find ways to move forward, which categories of detainees are we primarily talking about? As Adam Marttinen himself highlighted at the press conference, it is primarily in such cases people who have been detained for a longer period and reasonably also people who, after having served their sentence, are still to leave the country. To speak of categories is therefore also meaningful in a discussion when it comes to the whole.
That it generally must take place an efficiency, I think, lies in the nature of the matter. One dimension that the correctional services themselves highlight is the opportunities that digitalization gives the correctional services, for example regarding movements between different units which today are very personnel-resource-intensive. It is also about that with the help of digitalization and modern technology one can streamline the correctional services' operations and also in that way take an efficiency grip on the costs.
With all this said, I want to come back to the fact that I think we should have a high level of ambition when it comes to the expansion, a high level of ambition when it comes to finding new solutions, including renting out employment places abroad, but also a high level of ambition when it comes to the recidivism prevention work for those individuals where it is meaningful both from an individual and from a societal perspective.
I have great confidence that the correctional services are already doing that job today, but I am sure that it can be developed and become even better in the future.
Adam Marttinen (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, once again, Minister of Justice, for the answer and for a detailed picture of the challenges we face!
Despite this, my opinion probably remains quite firm where I started: that it is interesting, not only from a general societal perspective but also from an economic perspective, to look at how low a standard we can offer in Sweden generally and still maintain some form of level that does not jeopardize human rights. That level is interesting to investigate precisely for the category of foreigners who are to be deported, because they lack a need for reintegration measures in the institution.
It is, after all, a category that is significant in our institutions today. I believe the figure is somewhere around 3,000 foreign nationals who are admitted to our institutions annually. It is a considerable number of individuals whom we must collectively ensure that more of are deported and who incur a high daily cost. I believe it lacks support among the Swedish population that we have such a generous content for persons who have come here and misbehaved in the grossest manner so that they are now in an institution and who, in addition, are to be deported after their sentences.
In the expansion that the government is now making of the criminal justice system, I think it is justified to look at the possibilities for the criminal justice system to make a distinction between foreign and Swedish citizens and offer the absolute lowest standard for those foreigners who are to be deported from our country.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I would like to conclude by thanking Adam Marttinen for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today.
We share the fact that we have an incredibly high level of ambition when it comes to the development of Swedish criminal justice. We know that the need is driven by a number of important factors, partly of course the development of society, partly the fact that police and prosecutors shall have tools so that they can solve more crimes in the future. It will increase the pressure. Furthermore, there is a strong interest in general reforms of criminal law that make the sentences reflect the seriousness of the crimes in a better way than today, which also means that more people will sit in prison longer.
All this creates a transformation pressure on the Prison and Probation Service with great opportunities. I foresee that there is now a lot of focus on volume and the number of places. It is not so strange because the Prison and Probation Service is already today, due to the expansion starting far too late, faltering under the pressure of societal development and the lack of expansion. But once we have taken care of the capacity - the volume - we shall truly discuss the content. A reasonable starting point is to look at this individually. It is quite true that persons who are foreign citizens who are to be imprisoned and then deported naturally do not have a need for reintegration measures for the purpose of entering and being reintegrated into Swedish society.
I want to conclude by pointing out another important dimensioning factor, namely security. We must still have an operation for persons to be deported that ensures we do not build pressure cookers all over the country. It will deteriorate the correctional services for other detainees and for all the employees who, of course, should go to work feeling safe and secure.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.