Response to interpellation 2023/24:33 on cooperation for crime prevention work
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M argues that the government is carrying out major investments in the justice system and crime prevention work 1. M believes that cooperation between school, social services and police is crucial for identifying children in need of support 1 2, and that secrecy reforms can solve both serious and other crimes 2 3. M advocates for increased responsibility for the parents in the local area 3. S believes that municipalities often lack resources to fulfill the government's ambitions 4 and opposes cuts 5. S wants to strengthen the equality grant to the school and proposes an increased general investment in the municipalities 5 as the government does not provide sufficient resources 6.
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! Thank you, Anna Wallentheim, for this opportunity to discuss the issue of cooperation for crime prevention work!
The question I have received concerns how I and the government intend to increase cooperation between school, social services, and the police with the goal of improving crime prevention measures. Furthermore, Anna Wallentheim has asked me what concrete measures the government intends to provide to break new recruitment and improve crime prevention measures in the school environment.
Organized crime threatens our free and open society. To meet the wave of violence that has hit our country during the autumn, both the rule of law and the social state must be mobilized, as we were discussing in the interpellation debate we have just concluded.
The government is carrying out major investments in the justice system but also in strengthening crime prevention work. For next year, the investments in preventive measures amount to a total of 2.8 billion kronor. As we have touched upon earlier today, this includes, among other things, expanded home visit programs, reinforced parenting support interventions, school social teams, developed sports activities, and an investment in a leisure card so that children and young people shall have reasonably equal conditions in meaningful sports activities and other leisure activities.
The government is working to sharpen parental responsibility and to ensure that support for guardians is improved. Furthermore, the government is investing in early support measures to reduce the risk of serious problems and future crime. Another piece of news is the new Social Services Act that the government will present during next year. To stimulate the transition of the operations, we have also proposed a competence and staffing initiative in social services both in the short and long term.
That relevant actors can share information with one another is a central part of the cooperation that is crucial for society to be able to identify children and young people in need of support at an early stage. The Government has therefore given the School Safety Inquiry an additional mandate to analyze which pieces of information may need to be exchanged between school, social services, and law enforcement agencies for crime prevention purposes (dir. 2023:120).
The investigation also has the task of, in other ways, submitting proposals on how the school's crime prevention work can be strengthened. The investigator shall, among other things, propose how a statutory responsibility for the crime prevention work should be designed for the school system and submit proposals on how the preventive work against acts of violence in the school system can be strengthened.
In the spring, the government gave the Swedish Police Authority, the National Board of Health and Welfare, and the State Institution Board, Sis, a mandate to map the recruitment of children and young people into criminal environments and also provide an assessment of how many children and young people in different age categories are active in criminal environments and what the distribution looks like in the country.
The assignment also included proposing a structure for cooperation between authorities to prevent children and young people from being drawn into crime. In the proposal that the authorities submitted at the end of September, cooperation between school, social services, police and other local actors is included as a completely central part.
School should be a safe place, free from violence and with good conditions for learning. In order to increase knowledge about violence in school and how it manifests, the Crime Prevention Council has been tasked with mapping more serious violent crimes in school.
In June 2023, the government tasked the Swedish Schools Inspectorate with reviewing the schools' work to prevent and address intolerance, violence, and oppression. We have also introduced a state grant for school social teams, which is a way for the school and social services to work together to, among other things, create a calm and safe working environment. Furthermore, we have made an investment in so-called emergency schools, where students can be placed temporarily according to the provisions of the Education Act (2010:800) regarding disciplinary measures.
The crime prevention work remains important. The school is one of many crucial pieces of the puzzle to be able to counter violence, new recruitment, and a continued escalation of organized crime.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Madam Speaker! I too would like to begin by taking a few seconds to speak about the dreadful events that occurred last night. I agree with my colleague's thanks for the work that the government but also other actors have done to ensure that the Swedes who were in Brussels yesterday arrived safely at their hotels or the places where they live.
I and everyone I met during both yesterday evening and this morning are, of course, devastated by the act of terrorism that occurred in Brussels yesterday, an act of terrorism that unfortunately caused two Swedes to lose their lives and a third person to fight for their life. I am thinking of all the people who were affected yesterday – the Swedes who lost their lives, their loved ones, all Swedes who are in Brussels yesterday and still today, and everyone who right now feels anxiety over what is happening in the world.
What happened was an attack against our democracy, against our open society and against the community that sports provide. We must never let terrorism triumph, not yesterday, not today and not tomorrow.
With this said, Madam Speaker, I would like to return to today's debate and the reason why I am standing here today, namely my interpellation on cooperation for crime prevention work, with a particular focus on cooperation between the police, school, and social services.
I want to start by thanking Minister Strömmer for being here and having this debate with me today. I was, in fact, nervous when I received indications from the Chamber Office that it was a debate that perhaps could be handed over to the Minister for Education. I am incredibly grateful that the Minister is here today and also see how important it is that we dare to talk about other authorities and institutions even in our area.
Even though one might think it is my background as a teacher that makes me stand here today, the emergence of the interpellation was actually a review recently conducted by Skolverket on behalf of the government. The review showed a worrying lack of cooperation between schools, the police, and social services, and that made me react. In my view, this type of cooperation is of utmost importance for crime prevention work and for stopping the new recruitment to criminal gangs.
The reason I reacted so strongly to the review was that it showed that half of the responding schools have no established cooperation with either the police or social services. This lack of collaboration, which I see as incredibly important and as a decisive crime-preventive measure, constitutes a significant challenge when it comes to creating a safe and secure upbringing for our children and youth.
As a politician but perhaps even more as a teacher, I find these signals worrying. I believe that this type of cooperation is, of course, something that all schools should have, but perhaps it becomes extra palpable in those areas that the police themselves classify as vulnerable and where both principals and teachers emphasize the importance of there being a cooperation between the school and the police to catch children and young people who are drifting away and support them in their continued work.
For children and young people growing up in poverty and in areas with vulnerability, high unemployment or social problems, it is necessary that the school becomes a central actor that helps them and prevents them from being drawn into criminal gangs.
Certainly, there are several parts in the Minister of Justice's response that are good – parts that I stand behind and investigations that I am eagerly awaiting. A picture is presented of there being good ideas that are truly crime-preventing and not just repressive, but many times this responsibility lands but not the resources do with the municipalities.
In the previous debate, my colleague raised the deficits that the municipalities and regions are running with. Already now, I am receiving signals from my constituency that extra resources, teaching assistants, and even schools will be shut down or withdrawn. Therefore, I would like to ask Gunnar Strömmer: How do the municipalities' and regions' large deficits go hand in hand with the government's good ambitions regarding the school's important role?
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! Now we have today's second debate on the crime-preventing and extremely urgent work, and therefore I felt that I needed to jump in even in this debate. I would like to raise the terrible violence that ruthless perpetrators subject women and children to within the walls of the home. I believe that we need to talk about this in the same context as the preventive.
Every day, girls and women are subjected to harassment, violence, and sexual crimes. The violence violates and restricts the victim's fundamental freedoms and rights.
The violence also affects those children who are forced to witness the abuse. To fall victim to violence in the home as a child increases the risk of subjecting others or becoming a victim oneself in adulthood. Even here, the school and social services are extremely important actors.
These are perpetrators who exist in all social groups and come from all different backgrounds, and it is violence that has occurred in all times. Every form of violence or threat of violence against women limits the safety and freedom even for those women who are not themselves subjected to it. As long as a single woman is harmed by her partner or former partner, we have not done enough.
Even in this area, very good and important work is being carried out in the country's municipalities. Under the previous government, reinforced and more long-term resources were added to women's and crime victim helplines. The municipalities have received increased opportunities to write IOP agreements with helplines and civil society that promote continuity and cooperation. New clinics, relation centers, and units for those affected by violence have started.
Some time ago I was in Bollnäs and visited Trygghetens hus, where social services and the police cooperate closely. They have continuous meetings with both the schools and primary care - the health centers. They are also out informing, meeting high school classes and middle school classes and talking about violence in young relationships, which is also a very important topic. Here, there is an opportunity to see and catch even very early signs of violence and break an otherwise devastating spiral of violence.
Madam Speaker! My question to the Minister for Justice is how the government views precisely the violence-preventive work between the police, school, and social services when it concerns men's violence against women, violence in close relationships, and honor-related violence and oppression.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Anna Wallentheim and Sanna Backeskog for valuable contributions on an urgent issue and an important subject.
I will begin with what perhaps concerns above all the crime prevention work, i.e., that children and young people should be prevented from stepping in and starting a criminal career. There is no doubt whatsoever that the interaction between the police, school, and social services is absolutely crucial.
I have also taken note of the fact that nearly half of the country's schools lack such a more structured interaction. It naturally does not fall solely on the schools, but social services and the police must, so to speak, invite them in. There may be local variations, and there may be personal issues and all such things that have an impact. But overall, it is of course a very depressing picture. And it is extremely crucial that the figure is 100 and not 50, because a close interaction between different actors who each hold information but also have different tools needed to handle the situation is crucial to achieving this.
I believe that the reform of the secrecy rules has an enormous potential, even though I also believe that both structure, i.e., legislation, and culture play a role. Those who claim that it is probably possible to interact more offensively already within the framework of today's secrecy rules are likely to be right. But at the same time, one can say that many, on good grounds, also feel afraid of making a mistake, with major consequences for those it affects and also with the risk of breaking the law. We shall therefore make it easy to do the right thing and let it be an important injection into this interaction.
But it also requires a cultural shift or a shift in perspective that is very well symbolized by what Sanna Backeskog mentioned, that social services and police sometimes move in together, which has occurred in different parts of the country. It is a very concrete image of how close, fundamentally, one wants this interaction to be.
Collaboration also has other merits. The whole point is actually to take a broader approach where we also capture things that perhaps do not necessarily need to become fully serious crime, but also other issues that may be of a more social nature, or that children are crime victims in a home environment where the father beats the mother or that other close relationships are characterized by violence.
I think it is extremely important that we have the bandwidth to be able to see more perspectives than "just" the gang-related violence. There is no doubt that it is an extraordinarily large societal problem. But that does not mean that, for example, men's violence against women has become a smaller problem. Some of the issues—honor-related violence—are extremely crucial to crack in order to succeed in a multitude of other respects. For that part, it does not need to be honor-related violence, but it can be other restrictions that occur, so to speak, in the name of honor.
All this cannot be achieved without close cooperation. I therefore see that what we are doing now, and which perhaps above all is driven by developments regarding the most serious crimes, also creates immensely better conditions to manage other pressing tasks.
Now I am quite far outside my daily domains, but there is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that, for example, the tool for reporting concerns is not used to the extent that reality probably actually justifies. It is therefore existing tools that, for various reasons, are not used as offensively as they should be. It should be seen as an act of care in a different way than it is today.
We have mentioned secrecy and how we are to use those types of tools that are both more intrusive and more offensive. If we can achieve this grip, we can, at best, solve both serious crime and other crime.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Madam Speaker! I want to begin by thanking the Minister for the answer. It becomes clear in this debate that there are actually several areas where we have quite a lot of consensus. Just as the Minister mentioned in his answer, we need to continue working on this issue until one hundred percent of all of Sweden's schools say that they have a good cooperation with the police, social services, and so on. I believe that it is actually then that we will see the clear effect.
But after also having sat here and listened to the previous debate, I am still worried. Much of this lies with the municipalities, and what the municipalities are facing right now are large cuts. As I mentioned, I receive information from my constituency and from municipalities that there will be cuts in resource assistance, teaching assistants, and break supervisors, and they are even closing schools just because the municipalities are being brought to their knees.
Then I can wonder how the government can talk about investments when we see that these are the effects it has out in society. Is it not the case that these investments are actually just holes that one is trying to plug, and which the government is also responsible for? It is simply not possible to present a budget where one cuts back on certain activities and then says that one is making certain investments. That equation does not add up.
In recent weeks, Sweden has unfortunately been shaken by extremely brutal gang violence. It has escalated. We see children murdering children. We have innocents who have been affected. We have welfare staff and relatives who have now unfortunately also become targets.
What is needed right here and now is that we make clear efforts to calm down the situation but also to stop new recruitment and ensure that no more young people are drawn into gang violence or fall victim to the deadly violence.
We Social Democrats want to see a clear investment in crime prevention work, and we oppose the cuts that the government and the Sweden Democrats are making. Of course, the police need to focus right now on solving crimes and ensuring that even more perpetrators are arrested. But that is why the preventive work that the school specifically does becomes extra important. There must also be an established cooperation between schools and the police for this work to be able to be carried out.
To reverse the development in the long term, we Social Democrats also want to strengthen the school. We want to reinforce the equality grant to the school and ensure that the schools that have it toughest also receive the most money. It is among such initiatives that we see would make a difference both in the short and long term. But above all, we Social Democrats actually propose an increased general investment in the municipalities precisely because they are on their knees.
I think it is time that the government and the Sweden Democrats actually seriously see what is happening all around Sweden and in the country's municipalities. We see that large cuts will occur next year. We see that taxes will need to be raised. But we also unfortunately see that it sometimes must be combined and that one both raises taxes and makes large cuts to ensure that the crisis prevailing right now is resolved.
Shall we seriously increase the cooperation that is so incredibly important to break the new recruitment? The municipalities must be given the right conditions. That which happens locally must also, in most cases, be solved locally.
Last week, SVT Nyheter reported which measures have been most important to tackle the gang crime and the shootings that hit Malmö a few years ago. And the most important factors were investments in the school. But if there is one thing this government and Sverigedemokraterna do not seem to want to invest in, it is precisely the resources for the school.
As mentioned earlier in the debate, and as I have touched upon, the country's municipalities and regions are facing large deficits - a total of 28 billion kronor heading into 2024. It can be added that 94 percent of the country's teachers feel great concern over the cuts in schools and what they will lead to.
What is the government's answer to the country's worried teachers when the resources are insufficient for their primary tasks, let alone for the crime prevention work?
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! It takes a long time to build up measures for clear cooperation if they are to make a good difference, but it goes quite fast to destroy them if resources are lacking. I feel worried about whether all these municipalities that are doing so much good today will have the opportunity to carry out violence prevention work and provide support to victims of violence to the same extent when resources shrink.
When it comes to violence in relationships, one sees that it is increasing at approximately the same rate as gang crime. If there is something I believe we would need to devote more time, resources, and reflection to, it is the destructive norms of masculinity and how we can work preventatively and to change norms.
Destructive masculinity norms are destructive on both the individual and societal level. I believe that more evidence-based interventions need to be made there. There is much that indicates that men do not seek care or support for mental ill-health to the same extent as women do. Three times as many men as women die in alcohol-related diseases, and eight out of ten who drown are men. A significantly higher proportion of men than women report that they lack a close friend, and approximately 85 percent of the persons suspected of violent crimes are men.
There are successful concepts and evidence-based research regarding how to work with crime prevention with men and young boys in schools, but for that, the schools and the welfare sector need proper resources. We need to adopt the successful recipes that exist, for example Shanazi heroes in Gävle who work against honor-related violence and oppression. There, the University of Gävle has just demonstrated very successful results. Young boys learn in groups more about which norms and values one wants to see, how to stand up for themselves, and how to talk about feelings. They are very positive role models out in the schools, but it is required that the schools have resources.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam President! I intend to say a few things. The first concerns what I perceive as myth-making regarding the government's economic policy concerning the welfare system.
The issue is that – and I believed the Social Democrats had this with them as a long-standing governing party – that the greatest threat to both the wage earners' and the municipalities' and regions' wallets, and to welfare, is an inflation that erodes the value of money. It is the great, long-term challenge for the schools, the preschools, the healthcare, and all welfare here in the country. Already there, certain restrictions are placed on a responsible economic policy.
The most important thing we can do for the welfare in the long term is to restore, as quickly as possible, a situation where money does not lose value so terribly fast. That is the background for why the government has created a reform space which, although it contains a lot of money, is still responsible if one looks at the total. 40 percent of that space goes to the municipalities and regions, i.e., to the welfare. 16 billion goes in state grants to the municipalities. This means that the state takes half the bill for the municipalities' and regions' total deficit. It is not a bad effort by any state or at any national level in a situation where growth is low, competitiveness is faltering, and inflation every day reduces the value of the money.
It is a responsible approach to the economy to invest so much in welfare and, for that part, also to make the record investments that occur within the budget for the justice system during the same period. I think there is every reason to value that.
The second thing I want to say is that it is a misconception that there would be no investments in schools. It is the opposite. The Minister for Education should be here now and defend his negotiation successes in the budget process. Many other cabinet ministers feel disappointed by the outcome, but that is not the case for the school side. It has been very successful in the budget, both in terms of resources and qualitatively. This also applies to what goes directly into social preventive work: mapping of language skills, strengthening of SFI, better working environment and working conditions for teachers in schools in vulnerable areas and school social teams. They are extraordinarily important.
If we look at municipal schools – or independent schools for that matter – around the country that operate in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, we can observe that even with existing resources, the results vary greatly depending on what is done with those existing resources. In Järva, which is part of Stockholm, there has been a fantastic development of school results in recent years. They themselves highlight a few success factors, and one of them is a very clear focus on knowledge. One is in school to learn. There is a strong focus on teaching.
The initiative for school social teams that is in the budget is based, not least, on the experience of creating resources in the school that can take care of what is not teaching, in order to achieve better precision and a higher level of social interventions in the school and, above all, to protect the teachers so that they can devote themselves to what they are good at, namely teaching and lifting the children academically and pedagogically. I therefore simply do not buy the member's description.
If we are to be very precise, and address those who want to read the Excel sheets in the budgets, it is also to a very high degree about what one counts as crime prevention work. Let me say that the figures in the Socialdemokraterna budget are, in their own way, both rounded and quite generously tucked under the umbrella of crime prevention work. There are, for example, school initiatives which in themselves may be justified but which also exist in the government's budget without being counted under the umbrella of crime prevention work.
All in all, enormous investments are being made in welfare in a tight economic situation, and a significant part of them will also have a tangible effect in preventing children and young people from being drawn into crime.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Madam Speaker! I believe that the Minister and I simply have to agree to disagree when it comes to different budgets and the investments being made.
I would like to start by thanking the Minister for this interpellation debate and, as I mentioned in my previous contribution, for the fact that we can still have some consensus regarding some of the measures that should be taken. Just as mentioned in another debate, we as representatives of the two largest parties, i.e., the Social Democrats and the Moderates, should perhaps cooperate more on these issues in order to make a real difference.
The shootings and explosions unfortunately reach new record levels, and Sweden has become more dangerous over the past year. Crime and violence cause harm, kill, tear families apart, and create unrest and fear. Organized crime and criminal gangs challenge our society and the sense of community that we must stand up for every day. To address this problem, measures are required in several areas, as crime policy cannot bear the entire solution. What I wanted to convey with my interpellation was how important it is that other actors, such as schools and social services, are also part of the solution.
So, it is not enough to fight crime. We must also fight the causes of crime, and that requires an education policy that actually reaches all children and a social policy that builds security for everyone. I still believe, however, that there is a problem with the solution that the government is putting forward. More resources are needed for municipalities and regions, because right now we risk cuts within the school system.
I hope that the government realizes that big words regarding crime prevention work also require resources for the actors who make a difference. If one wants the school to be an important actor that ensures every child becomes their best, catches children and young people who are drifting away and increases cooperation with the police, the resources must also be directed correctly.
My demands are: Do it over, do it right! Prioritize our municipalities and regions! Prioritize welfare and the school! Prioritize our children and young people!
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Anna Wallentheim once again for a fine discussion on pressing issues.
First and foremost, I want to emphasize that the social problem we are now discussing is of a depth and breadth that is almost beyond comprehension. It has accumulated over a long sequence of years. There has been a tripling of gun violence over ten years. When it comes to the children, the appalling figure is 80 indicted just so far this year for the most serious crimes: murder, attempted murder, aiding and abetting murder, and so on. It is a figure that ten years ago was not 80, but 8.
There is a growth of the criminal networks with a new recruitment of three people per day and 1,000 per year, largely young. It is a criminality that is pushing further and further down in age. The 15-year limit around which we have built both criminal law and social services is completely bypassed by a reality where the perpetrators can be 12, 13, or 14 years old even in terms of the most serious crimes. They are, of course, exploited in a very cynical way by those who are behind this criminality.
I am happy to agree to disagree when it comes to the economy. If, in an inflationary situation of the kind that Sweden has today, 40 percent of 40 billion is allocated to the municipalities, it is an enormously large investment in welfare in a situation where money is losing value. Regarding the profile of the investments concerning the area we are now talking about, I would say that we not only get a substantial offensive on the repressive side but also get greater precision and higher quality in the crime prevention work going forward.
It is also very much about what one does with the money. Confidentiality barriers are being removed so that we can get better pressure out of existing resources. The Riksdag will also be met with some rather tough proposals in the social preventive area. To take such an example, increased responsibility for the local area for parents when it comes to children's criminality is a rather controversial issue, but I mean that it is pattern-breaking and extremely important.
I am, therefore, happy to have a discussion about the means and the economy. There we are possibly more in agreement than the debate gives the impression of. The difficult part comes when we are to discuss what we should do with the money going forward.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.