Response to interpellation 2023/24:412 on increased risk of school attacks
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M considers that the government is working on a new national strategy against violence-promoting extremism and terrorism 1. 2 M emphasizes that the strategy is preventive and social-preventive in order to interrupt radicalization 2. 2 M argues that a mobilization of the entire society is required and that increased penalties are part of the preventive strategy 2. 2 M considers that stricter penalties for serious weapons offenses and transport of explosives have a crime-preventive effect 2. 2 M argues that local police presence is crucial 2. 3 M considers that a paradigm shift is required within school and social services 3. 4 S considers that the government is not doing enough and that the solution lies in strengthening the sense of community 4.
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)
Mr. Speaker! Anna Wallentheim has asked me how I and the government are working to prevent the growing threat regarding school attacks in Sweden.
I and the government share Anna Wallentheim's concern regarding the development. In light of the generally changed and worsened security situation, the government has recently decided on a new national strategy against violent extremism and terrorism. It appears from this that continued efforts are needed to reduce the risk of children and young people being radicalized and recruited into violent extremism and terrorism. It also appears that schools need support to develop the ability to detect and prevent children and young people from being radicalized and committing acts of violence both inside and outside of school.
The Government considers it important that safety in schools should be improved and that municipalities and independent school providers shall receive support and guidance.
A special investigator has been tasked with investigating and submitting proposals for measures to improve work on security in the school system. In the first interim report of the investigation, Society against school attacks, proposals are submitted that the Center against violence-oriented extremism, CVE, at the Crime Prevention Council shall be tasked with providing support to municipalities, authorities, and other actors in the work to prevent school attacks. We are now processing that proposal within the Government Offices.
The relevant authorities take the development most seriously. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, MSB, in cooperation with the Swedish Police Authority and CVE, has developed a guidance for school activities. It is titled Acts of violence with major consequences in schools - A guidance for school management, school staff and those responsible for security. It states that all schools should have a plan describing how the school should prepare for, act during and recover from an attack.
CVE, MSB, Polismyndigheten, Socialstyrelsen, Statens skolverk and Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner have jointly developed a website: skolattack.se. I recommend that everyone goes and takes a look at it. The website is aimed at all school forms, regardless of the governing body. On the website, information and support are gathered from the actors who in different ways work preventatively against school attacks and who offer support in this work.
The Government has tasked the Swedish Security Service, the Swedish Police Authority, CVE and MSB to take measures to incorporate the new strategy against violent extremism and terrorism into their operations. In this way, the Government wants to ensure that the agencies' work will be conducted in line with the directions for continued work specified in the strategy.
With these measures, actors within the school system and other relevant actors will have access to support and guidance both for their preventive work against violent extremism and in the work to prevent and manage school attacks. I and the government will continue to follow the issue closely and are prepared to take further measures if it is deemed necessary.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! Attacks against children and young people are one of the most ruthless things that exist. That one can venture into schools, in that place where our children are to feel safe, learn about life, society and the world, with the intent to kill is completely incomprehensible. But unfortunately, we are not spared from it.
For a long time, school attacks were considered an American problem. But during the last decade, unfortunately, a number of school attacks and acts of violence have also occurred in Swedish schools. When searching for school attacks in Sweden, reference is usually made to about twelve cases from the 1960s until today. It should be mentioned that they have all, thankfully, been without any fatalities.
Two of the attacks occurred before the year 2000. This means that ten of them have occurred in modern times. Seven of the attacks have occurred in the last nine years. Unfortunately, the three most recent occurred in Skåne, my own region. There, Eslöv, Kristianstad and Malmö have been affected.
The reason I have submitted my interpellation is not the attacks that have unfortunately occurred, but that the police, researchers, and CVE themselves are receiving more and more worrying signals and signs from teachers, guardians, social services, and others that more planned school attacks are being uncovered than ever before.
In conversations with various stakeholders in the field, it clearly emerges that a growing group of young people, almost always boys unfortunately, isolate themselves from reality and instead immerse themselves in dangerous online forums. In these online forums, in the children's digital environments, extremism and conspiracy theories are spread. There, hatred against people from other cultures is discussed. Hatred against Islam is unfortunately a recurring theme. Signs that one wants to purge people with connections to Islam are considered by these individuals to be the only right thing.
Young Swedish boys praise online those who carried out school attacks in the USA and New Zealand as heroes and argue that others should follow their example. Furthermore, the continuous stream of podcasts, videos, and chat threads showing how a school attack could be carried out and how one can create their own bombs and weapons continues. That it never ends online is one of the major challenges according to the police.
In recent weeks, one has been able to follow an article series in Aftonbladet about hate in schools and violence in schools. One can read how young men who have carried out school attacks themselves describe that they have been radicalized online, for example on TikTok and Snapchat, and that they have been driven by people who glorify violence and right-wing extremism to carry out school attacks. Young boys describe that they have ended up in an evil spiral of exclusion, hate, right-wing extremism and violence romanticism and finally found a forum for community. It is a growing phenomenon that worries me.
Those who research extremism clearly point out that it is almost never children who start those types of thoughts, but it is when xenophobia creeps into society and finds a breeding ground that children also begin to get these thoughts.
The Minister mentions in his answer several different tools and ongoing work to counter extremism and terrorism. That is good. But my question to the Minister becomes: How is the government working to increase social cohesion and understanding of other cultures?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Anna Wallentheim, for the opportunity to discuss these extraordinarily important issues today!
We share the concern that Anna Wallentheim expresses. This is, unfortunately, well-documented and well-described. It is also the background to why the government, on a broad front, gives assignments, appoints inquiries, and supports authorities who, in interaction with one another, are now taking offensive measures to prevent and preclude this type of serious violent crime.
Factors that are particularly worrying are that those who have committed these very serious crimes are usually very young. They are often children themselves. This confirms that children and young people are particularly susceptible and vulnerable when it comes to radicalization and recruitment.
It is also not possible to decouple this from the broader development in society when it comes to extremism and violent extremism. Anna Wallentheim describes in a good way a substantial part of the threat coming from a right-wing extremist environment and that it appears, not least, digitally and reaches many young people that way. But we also know that violent Islamism is the other truly serious threat when it comes to radicalization and recruitment into extremist environments that can result in serious attacks. It is about terrorist attacks that can hit other targets in society but also schools.
If we are to take on this challenge and do it in a systematic way, we need, above all, to think in terms of right-wing extremism and violence-promoting Islamism. We also need to tackle the parts where the environments resemble each other, sometimes also bordering on each other and overlapping each other.
One thing is clear to us who prefer to think in systematic terms when it comes to certain ideological directions. We should bear in mind that many of the young people we are talking about, the lone actors who are the most difficult to detect but who have also to a large extent committed various attacks both in schools and in other ways, have often stitched together their own ideology. What is common is that there are violence-seeking and violent elements, but otherwise they can be a mishmash from different ideological sides. We must be aware of all this and push back.
It is a responsibility shared by the entire society to do everything in our power to prevent and preclude children and young people from being radicalized and drawn into violence-promoting environments. The most difficult part is likely what occurs in the digital environment because it is the hardest to have control over, but we must nevertheless take measures that are preventive in that respect as well.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! I want to start by thanking the Minister for the answer, even though I think we might be missing the core of the question I asked, namely how we increase social cohesion. It is one thing to prevent children and young people from being drawn into radicalization and extremism, and another thing to ensure that social cohesion is increased so that children and young people do not even feel that this is something that appeals to them.
I hope and believe that the Minister perhaps senses what it is I want to highlight. The core of and the solution to an incredible amount of the crime we see is to work preventatively. Of course, it is good that there are plans and legislation to resort to so that we know how we are to handle criminals, criminals, terrorists and extremists.
It is also very good that we, as the Minister mentioned in his first post, have skolattack.se, which is an important digital forum where schools can turn for help with handling, for example, situations where it is seen that children risk falling into violent extremism. It is also important to have an updated national strategy against terrorism and extremism in order to keep up with modern society.
But there is nothing as important as building a strong society and ensuring that no human being, no youth and no child ever ends up in the evil spirals that go so far that one is prepared to, for example, carry out a school attack. Crime prevention must therefore be prioritized.
As I have mentioned in previous debates with the Minister, this concerns all types of crime. I believe, however, that the government unfortunately does not always live up to the beautiful words spoken here. In my opinion, it is not credible for the government to talk warmly about how important it is to strengthen the sense of community, talk about crime prevention work—in the true sense of the word, I want to point out—and talk about stopping the violence and crime if they simultaneously ignore the reality we face.
It is not, in my opinion, through harsher punishments, legislation or visitation zones that we solve the problem, but it is in people's everyday lives. It must be admitted that neither I nor the Minister for Justice are the ones who will make the big difference. It is our teachers, our field workers, the parents, the social workers, the leisure leaders, civil society, the sports leaders, our municipalities, among others, who will do the decisive work.
Our municipalities, our regions, civil society and ordinary families with children are suffering right now. People are losing their jobs here and now. Municipalities are being forced right now to scale back their operations. Families with children must turn over every krona just to afford putting food on the table or letting their children and young people continue with their extracurricular activities. Teachers, healthcare staff and field workers are being laid off at this very moment.
At the same time, we have a government that speaks of a paradigm shift within our area. But not enough is being done when it comes to crime prevention work.
None of the young boys who are being radicalized right now, regardless of what form of radicalization we are talking about, will we be able to convert through harsher punishments. But for example, a bank tax, an extra child allowance, increased state grants to our municipalities and regions, more adults in our schools, reduced care queues and a stronger civil society is in any case a start. Of course, this does not solve everything, but we would at least start in the right direction. We would turn off the tap that fills the bathtub instead of using a spoon to empty it while the water flows into it even faster.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! We should naturally not joke when we speak about such very serious matters, but it is striking that every discussion eventually lands on a bank tax when one speaks with Social Democrats. I thought that the money would go to defense, but for all that – even if many of the proposals on how this should be done, if I understood the whole thing correctly, were unfunded, it will surely also suffice for the social preventive work. We will have to believe it when we see it, as they say.
I believe it is very important to step back to the core issues. If one looks at the strategy that we are perhaps a bit carelessly moving past now, one sees that it is to the highest degree preventive in its character, even socially preventive. Three-quarters of it is precisely about preventing, protecting, and safeguarding our society and about interrupting a radicalization before it transitions into an anchoring in a violence-seeking environment, so that a situation never arises where someone is prepared to resort to violence to promote their convictions or interests.
It is quite obvious that one cannot achieve this prevention in a society simply by increasing the penalties. I do not really know which straw man the Social Democrats are fighting, and I do not know who claims this; I have never done so. On the other hand, I shall come to the importance of increasing the penalties even in this respect. It is clear that this is to a great extent a preventive strategy and that it requires a mobilization of the entire society, far beyond the justice system, to give this prevention power.
With this said, I also want to say that many of the things we do more in the core of crime policy, such as tightening sentences, can have an extraordinarily great significance. We can, for example, take the sentence tightening that occurred on January 1, doubling the minimum sentence for those who engage in serious weapon crimes or transport explosives. It means that these persons, for twice as long, will not be able to recruit new children and young people into crime. It is clear that this also has a very important crime-preventive effect.
When it comes to the security zones being discussed, I would like to say that the local police presence is extraordinarily important for the field workers' opportunities to be out and working during evenings and nights around the country. When the Social Democrats in Stockholm significantly reduced the number of security guards, this had the immediate effect that field workers, for example from civil society, who are usually out during evenings and nights, do not dare to go out because there is no security force or any other professional categories that maintain safety and security in streets and squares. When they were there, they created a sense of security in the public space so that social preventive work could be carried out.
When we back down on the issue of legal certainty, we also risk to a very high degree pulling the rug out from under the prerequisites for carrying out offensive social preventive work. For the Social Democrats to build up a contradiction between, on one hand, the repressive and on the other hand, the preventive, is therefore not particularly effective as political rhetoric and has very little to do with the actual conditions on the ground. We really need to do both.
Regarding the resources for welfare, the most important thing we can do to make them grow is to stop the inflation, which causes each municipality's money to lose value every day that passes - speaking of pouring into a leaking bathtub. We must reach a situation where the money does not lose value, and then we shall ensure that the economy begins to grow so that more people get into work.
Once upon a time, everything landed with the Social Democrats in the work line; now it lands in bank tax. I believe it would be better if you returned to the work line. Then we would get a significant amount of growing resources for the welfare.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! If I choose to interpret the Minister charitably, which I am more than happy to do, I believe we agree on quite a lot.
The Minister seemed to speak about how important it is to do both. In that case, I want to say congratulations to the government, which finally chooses to follow the social democratic line that we have talked about for so incredibly many years. I want to point out that neither I nor the Socialdemokraterna have ever said anything other than that certain sentence increases sometimes must be implemented. We tightened incredibly many sentences during our eight years in government, but unlike this government, we Socialdemokrater do not just talk about both and but also make it a reality.
I want to point out once again that our municipalities and regions are bleeding right now. Teachers are being laid off. More and more people are ending up with the enforcement authority. Society is being torn apart right now. From this, exclusion and extremism are born, which risk leading to, among other things, school attacks, which the interpellation is about.
I am grateful for the answers I have received today. A great deal of good things have been mentioned – also things that the Minister is aware that we Social Democrats stand behind. We stand behind, for example, the new national strategy. But the tap is still open, and my and the Social Democrats' priority will always be that it is closed.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the members once again for the opportunity to discuss these extremely important issues today. We have now broadened the discussion considerably from school attacks, radicalization, violent extremism, and all social preventive measures and other preventive measures that must be taken in order to break the patterns and ensure that as few children and young people as possible are drawn into a radicalization process and violent extremism, which in the worst case can ultimately result in violent and deadly attacks. We have seen all too many examples of this.
I have today accounted for the broad strategic approach that the government has taken in close interaction with authorities, municipalities, research, and civil society - the entire breadth of actors that must be mobilized for us to succeed in this task. I am certain that there is an enormous force out in society and an enormous will to cooperate to achieve this.
When it comes to social prevention, I want to say the following: I agree that the Social Democrats have spoken very much about this, but the results are still what counts in the end. I can only state that all those 15, 16, or 17-year-olds, and sometimes 12, 13, or 14-year-olds, in our society who are now being drawn into violent crime or into radicalization processes were three, four, or five years old ten years ago. Without making party-political polemics of this, I can say that the social prevention that we have devoted ourselves to in this country has obviously not been particularly effective.
Exactly the same major overhaul that the government is now undertaking in the area of criminal justice policy will also need to be made in the area of social policy. If we are to achieve a social prevention in this country that is not just words, not just a slogan in a political debate, we will also need to break patterns across the board when it comes to school, preschool, and social services. I am happy to speak further about this paradigm shift in the next interpellation debate.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.