Response to interpellation 2023/24:48 on measures to prevent the survival of gangs

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! I thank Marcus Wennerström for the opportunity to discuss these important issues together. Three interpellation debates with similar themes are coming in succession, so there is a risk that at least the initial answer may appear somewhat unimaginative. The question I have been asked to answer is how I intend to act to stop the new recruitment to the gangs.

When the recruitment to criminal gangs creeps further down in age, both the rule of law and the social state are challenged. Both must be mobilized to stop the new recruitment and push back organized crime.

The government is investing heavily in the justice system. Let me first state that it also has a crime-preventing purpose and a crime-preventing effect to a high degree. We are investing in the police, in longer sentences and in youth prisons, all of which create better conditions to prevent recidivism. It is also about strengthening social crime prevention work. I am very proud of the approximately 2.8 billion that is invested in our budget on various measures that prevent crime among children and young people in 2024 alone. These are funds that will, among other things, go to expanded home visit programs, reinforced parenting support measures, school social teams, developed sports activities and an investment in leisure cards for children and young people. It is about early support measures to reduce the risk of serious problems and future crime. Next year, the government will also present a new Social Services Act for a long-term sustainable, more preventive and knowledge-based social service. To stimulate the transition of the operations, we have proposed a competence and staffing investment in the short term and a substantial investment of over 8 billion in total over the coming years in Swedish social services.

On September 19, on my birthday, the government's council against organized crime held an extra meeting on the situation and measures to break the recruitment of children and young people into criminal gangs. 15 authorities and other key actors participated. On September 29, three of these – the Police Authority, the Social Services Agency, and the State Board of Institutions, Sis – presented the assignment they received from the government in April and submitted, among other things, proposals to establish a number of cooperation councils, so-called bob-councils – the abbreviation stands for children and young people in organized crime – around the country. The purpose of the proposed cooperation structure is to break the recruitment of children into criminal gangs and to initiate more effective, accurate measures when children and young people have already ended up in serious crime.

Is this then just another one in the row of administrative overstructures? No, it really is not. The model for this structure is the relatively successful agency cooperation against organized crime. There, cooperation forms have been developed that can prove to be very effective, now that we are also providing real tools to the agency to strike against the criminal economy. There is, therefore, a very effective and operational model for these structures.

Well! An important part of the work is also various social preventive initiatives that the government has taken the initiative for. More effective cooperation, I mentioned. Removing confidentiality barriers is crucial. It is also about earlier and clearer consequences, reinforced parental responsibility, expanded family support, and increased resources for social services and teachers in vulnerable areas.

We are also working to ensure that the social services have the tools they need to be able to work effectively. An investigation is now reviewing how the social welfare committee should be able to decide on requirements directed at children and young people, such as that the young person should be at home at certain specified times, practice at a workplace, or participate in regular leisure activities. The investigation shall also propose an arrangement that gives the social welfare committee opportunities to decide on open interventions toward guardians without consent. We are also working to create conditions for effective information sharing, that is, to remove confidentiality barriers, so that, among others, the police, school, and social services shall be able to exchange information with each other in an effective manner.

Overall, the government is making major investments in developing and supporting the preventive work to stop the recruitment of young people into criminal networks. We are, of course, continuously considering new measures and initiatives.

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Marcus Wennerström (S)

Madam President! Just as in previous debates, I want to begin by expressing my dismay over what happened in Brussels yesterday. I want to thank both the Minister for Justice as well as the police and other actors who - just as the Minister for Justice said - have been involved in handling the incident and ensuring that Swedes also abroad have been able to be as safe as possible in this difficult situation.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister for Justice for the answer to the interpellation. As the Minister for Justice mentioned, it is the third consecutive interpellation from the Social Democrats that he is answering. We can perhaps see it as a testament not to a lack of imagination, but to the fact that we prioritize this area very highly.

The focus lies, as the Minister for Justice pointed out in the response, on the investment in bob-råd, which, interestingly enough, was presented on my birthday. It involves cooperation, parental support, and other things, and it is truly very good. I sign off every day of the week that cooperation, information sharing, and so on are incredibly good. But as others have pointed out in previous debates: Do we really believe that cooperation will be fully prioritized when the municipalities' budgets are slashed?

I would also like to point out that we must not focus blindly on cooperation and information sharing between actors, as that does not solve the underlying problem of gang crime.

Take Uppsala as an example. The municipality has, over several years, built up a robust and long-term crime prevention work. Uppsala has introduced new methods, built up competence, and strengthened cooperation. They have employed social workers in schools, and they have started municipal exit programs.

But still, over the past few weeks, we have seen how Uppsala appears headline after headline when it comes to unpleasant or difficult acts of violence. If we scratch the surface of those behind the acts, it begins to show that those individuals are not necessarily from Uppsala but come from other parts of the country.

I want to ask the question: What do we learn from it? What we learn from it is that no one alone can remedy the situation. In that regard, I appreciate what the Minister for Justice touched upon at the end, about the fact that we are continuously considering other measures.

My continued reflection is: At the stage where the gang problem looks as it does, how far is the government willing to go in its thoughts on measures? Does the government, for example, see that there are structural problems in Sweden that we need to address?

When I recently spoke with representatives in Uppsala, the problems with HVB placements were raised. The free HVB market makes it difficult for receiving municipalities to create good conditions for the children from other municipalities who are placed there.

Children and young people who are placed under LVU or SoL often have greater needs and poorer conditions for succeeding in school. At the same time, the schools where the children are placed will have difficulty meeting the needs. We have touched upon the lack of money and the need for support resources in school previously.

We must also not shy away from the fact that many of the children who end up in the news as those who shoot and those who are shot are children whom society, through placements in one way or another, has said it has taken responsibility for. Finally, I would like to ask if the Minister for Justice shares the same description of the problem that I am trying to express.

Is the government willing to review the consequences that the marketization of public services has had for society's preventive capacity? Will the Minister for Justice, through changes in the perspective on a marketized welfare, provide the support that municipalities such as Uppsala need?

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Sanne Lennström (S)

Madam President! I also wish to begin this debate by expressing my deepest sympathies and my support for the relatives of the crime victims who lost their lives tonight and one who was seriously injured in the terrorist attack that occurred in Brussels. I want to thank the government for the work you have carried out to bring home those others in safety who remained there.

Marcus Wennerström has called for the debate today because we see a worrying development not only in Uppsala but also in other places in Sweden. Gang crime is something that is currently shaking our society to its core. It has reached the point that we see children shooting at children. Some of those who are in the gangs are barely twelve years old.

Some of these children have joined voluntarily. But it also occurs that the children are threatened into joining these gangs. I have recently spoken with various police officers about children in gang crime. Those conversations have unfortunately made me understand that it is very difficult to get these children to leave the gangs once they are in them. The success stories are, in short, few.

Therefore, it is now more important than ever that we together try to stop the violence that we are currently seeing occur. But we must also pave the way for a better future where we can feel significantly safer than we do today. It requires many forces to stop the violent development, and so also from this chamber.

In the Minister's response in this interpellation debate, he mentions that both the welfare state and the rule of law must mobilize to stop the development. I would like to dwell a little on these solutions to ensure that children are not recruited into crime.

In the short term, there is much we can do by giving the police the right resources and the right conditions. We must also give the customs service the conditions to stop the drugs that enter the country and finance these gangs. But in the longer term, we must also work preventatively, as several of my colleagues here have touched upon in previous debates.

My hope is that today we can leave this debate behind us and agree that investments in schools are a very important key to breaking the recruitment of new members to these gangs. That this is the case, everyone from police officers in Detroit to primary school teachers and researchers in economics can sign off on. School has very great importance, and it needs resources.

Special teachers can help those who are struggling in school so that the student does not find an identity among gangs rather than among friends in school. More school staff can counteract school absenteeism. We also know that very many of them who are detained have not managed to complete school.

Therefore, I want to ask the Minister Strömmer today: Does the Minister consider that the government is investing sufficiently in schools so that they can counteract more children being drawn into gang crime?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam President! Thank you to Marcus Wennerström and Sanne Lennström for important contributions.

I am truly ready for reassessments in a number of different respects. I hope that the willingness is just as great in the Riksdag as a whole. I am not ready to say, which perhaps some may dream of, that we should throw out all entrepreneurs and representatives of civil society from the public welfare. That could lead to enormous welfare losses.

However, there is no doubt that there is no room for a single unserious actor. There must be no room for a single person who tries to enrich themselves at the taxpayers' expense, and not a single person who uses HVB homes, dropout programs, or other activities as a platform for recruiting children and young people into new crime.

One can say without doubt that not only does our welfare system with benefits or other social advantages largely rely on trust. So do our choice systems. There is no doubt whatsoever that we must make a shift from trust to control to an extent that we probably don't actually think is so Swedish, because our social model is fundamentally based on something else.

Soon, the so-called Payment Authority will be in place. It is a way to bring order and structure to the payments from the welfare system. We need corresponding structural measures to also bring order and structure to those who deliver the welfare, including the private actors who contribute but who in some cases unfortunately also contribute in a negative way.

The review extends even further than that. I can take a starting point: children under 15 years of age. We talk very much about children between 15 and 17 years old, because that is where they are criminally responsible. That is where they can be prosecuted and we can implement intervention measures, whether it concerns Sis or, eventually, when they become somewhat older, Kriminalvården. But it is the 15-year limit that is problematic. It concerns how one is allowed to handle confidentiality issues. It concerns how one is allowed to use open interventions against the parents' will without consent. It concerns the penalties.

It is clearly very unsatisfactory when the police take 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 14-year-olds in cars full of weapons and explosives and all that can be done is to send them back to social services and school. They are to handle a criminality and a social vulnerability that they are not equipped for at all.

I hope that more parties in the Riksdag will be prepared to consider a lowering of the age of criminal responsibility. It may sound like a very repressive measure. But it is fundamentally about opening a toolbox that today is completely inaccessible to society against children who need something other than the return of the car with the weapons and explosives into inadequate social systems.

It is not just about putting children in prison. There is the extended youth supervision, youth care, and the youth service. There is a completely different quality and a completely different pressure in that toolbox. I believe that will be a very important part of the social preventive reassessment.

When it comes to the view on parents' responsibility for children's criminality, we took over an investigation that was ongoing. It concerned the tenants' responsibility for the housing in the apartment and their criminality. It concerned everyone except the children. I do not see the logic. Why should a family have a greater responsibility for a 17-year-old who is a lodger than for a 17-year-old who is their own child? It is extremely important that we, in the area of tenancy law, dare to take parental responsibility all the way out if we are to break patterns in order to address the problem.

All in all, there is very much to say about the economic resources. But there is an incredible amount to say about what we should use the economic resources for. The great test for the Riksdag will be when we are to speak about the content of the resources.

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Marcus Wennerström (S)

Madam President! Thank you, Minister of Justice, for your answer, even though I think it is unfortunate that a clear line is drawn at not reconsidering the view on the market effects on the social system when the results have become as scattered and as uncontrollable as we see them to be.

We see that the market often consists of actors who, as the Minister for Justice is pointing out, have unfair starting values - if one puts it mildly. We have seen criminal activity that has started HVB homes. We have seen that this, just as the Minister for Justice says, has become a basis for recruitment to the gangs.

This is in direct contrast to what I think we aim for when, as one of the final measures for a child, we take the child away from their family and their hopefully – but probably not – safe home conditions. This is, therefore, what happens when we take the children from the conditions that a child should experience and take them into the care of society – even if it is in an HVB home, which is less restrictive than, for example, a Sis placement.

It is important that we do not bind ourselves only to ideologies and thoughts that the market will solve this. I am therefore a bit disappointed by the answer I receive. The Minister for Justice says that we should balance this with control and control mechanisms. Unfortunately, it is something I recognize from the government's policy: One builds up a control activity in society that becomes disproportionate. We never talk about what the cost is for the control mechanisms that we build up.

The Minister for Justice is welcome to labor a bit over how many billions we will have to pay in to keep the market regulation of the HVB market open so as not to see other solutions. I am by no means saying that we cannot have other actors on site than the state or municipal ones. I am only saying that we should not have the basic market mechanisms that currently govern with free freedom of establishment and with the potential to extract money, which then occurs at the expense of the care of the youths who actually enter there.

As a concluding point, I want to take up something important that the Minister for Justice raises: the 15-year limit that has existed for a long time. As you have pointed out, I believe we must think about younger ages, but we must also keep in mind that it is children we are talking about. They are children who, in one way or another, have been socialized in a context that I suspect is completely alien to you and me.

A few weeks ago, I visited a Sis-hem. It has previously been a Sis-hem for children between 15 and 17 years old, and now the average age is just under 15. So, the ages have gone down. I spoke with those who work there, and for their part, it was very clear that there was such an enormous difference in caring for the 13-14-year-olds in terms of what kind of consequential thinking they had and how much one needed to work with them. At the same time, one has the same resources; there is no difference in staffing at the Sis-hems for the younger children in relation to those for the older ones. I believe there is much that we need to work on there.

I agree with the Minister of Justice in much regarding that we must think anew and dare to do new things. But I am sincerely concerned that the Minister in the response stands so firm on the fact that the market shall continue to govern the HVB homes.

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Sanne Lennström (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you very much, Minister Strömmer, for the debate here today and for your answers! They are important, and the debate is important because we are in a national crisis.

In a crisis, we must collectively review solutions and measures. Political points must be set aside, and prestige must be relinquished if we are to achieve a Sweden that does not become more dangerous with each passing day.

As I mentioned earlier, we must have the strength and the courage to look further ahead than we do right now. We need a long-term perspective when it comes to reviewing all policy areas for how we can stop the development. Today, we have 200,000 children and young people living in areas with a criminal presence and social vulnerability. The incomes are often very low, the school is substandard, and the housing conditions can also be difficult.

Of course, all young people want to have a role in society. They want to be someone, they want to be respected, and they simply want to belong. At the same time, we know that the school has an important role to play in this identity formation. But we also know that it faces major cuts instead of the supplements it actually needed.

The government would need to re-evaluate and reprioritize because politics is precisely about priorities. To then spend very many millions to remove a plastic bag tax or to lower the tax on snus is not the right priorities in a situation where schools and welfare need resources to meet the challenges that they are currently facing.

That is why I wonder if the Minister considers that the government is investing sufficiently in schools to ensure that they can counteract the fact that children are being drawn into the gang crime that we are currently seeing.

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! We hear from time to time that the Moderates should let go of their prestige. It almost feels like the Social Democrats will soon have to let go of the talking point about letting go of prestige, because that record has started to go around a few times.

There is no prestige at all. On the other hand, one would like to listen if there is anything good to hold onto. Sometimes there is, and then we shall make good things of it. Sometimes there is nothing good, and then we want to leave it and move on.

Speaking of ideological blockages, perhaps one still has to prick up one's ears and listen a little bit to the ministers' answers. It is quite the opposite, I think, that there are good reasons to reconsider elements in our freedom of choice model, because it is obvious that not least criminal actors can use structures built on trust for a number of different criminal purposes. The entire fundamentals in the plan to crack the criminal gangs are about striking against the violence, striking against the criminal economy – that is where you have the unserious actors – and breaking the new recruitment of children and young people.

What I am afraid of is perhaps the one who sees the opportunity to strike hard against well-functioning health centers and well-functioning schools that are in private ownership when now certain actors are unserious. I am afraid that in this ideological blocking or ideological opportunism, one might miss something that is extraordinarily essential to take in. It is thus not only the private owners of the HVB homes who can be subjects of the criminals' activities. We know that the pressure operations and the infiltration include the social services, municipal planning offices, and political parties. There are clan structures that are eating their way into large parts of the public sphere.

If we are to see the issue clearly and be able to strike at the economic base and at the systems through which children and young people are drawn into crime, we must, as it is called, without blindfolds, go both towards those elements in the private sphere that do not work and, for that part, also towards the vulnerabilities and elements that do not work in the public sphere.

The so-called insocialization and the 15-year limit when we talk about children and young people is, of course, a reality that we work with all the time. We all do that in our different roles. We talk about children; we already do that when it comes to the 15-17-year-olds.

But an insight that I believe will be revolutionary for the design of effective policy in this area is the insight that all old experiences of how children are socialized into crime are put to shame when it comes to serious crime. Our entire model is based on children starting to sniff a little glue and skipping a little bit. One does some unauthorized driving, and one modifies and tunes their moped. Then, one slides away into something that gradually becomes some thefts and an assault at the pub - and so one is on one's way.

But that is not the case! 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds are drawn into - it can happen in five or ten minutes - the very gravest crime. We will not be able to meet that reality with a model based on an idea of a longer career or a longer socialization. It will also require completely different interventions against the very youngest. It will be about the repressive and the more demanding elements, regardless of whether they come from Kriminalvården, from Statens institutionsstyrelse or from municipal and social interventions. The demanding part of the welfare state will need to step forward in a corresponding way to the more repressive rule of law.

All in all, it is time for a reassessment. The need will apply to all parts of politics. I am to a very high degree prepared for reassessment. I truly hope that more parts of this chamber also are.

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Marcus Wennerström (S)

Madam Speaker! I shall try to be brief.

I apologize if I misinterpreted the Minister for Justice, but I still have not quite heard which parts of this market are under potential review. I also do not want to remove functioning operations, but can we at least get an example linked to the freedom of establishment for HVB homes that makes them able to be centralized to certain positions, which becomes a heavy burden for the schools? Or can we hear if the Minister for Justice at least sees some need to expand the support to the schools that involuntarily, if one puts it that way, receive many of the HVB-placed children? It becomes a very large burden for those schools when resource-intensive children arrive who have the right to an uninterrupted schooling - as far as that is now possible; often it becomes a theoretical example.

Here, I would just like to get a clearer picture from the Minister for Justice. Otherwise, I have nothing to object to regarding the picture he gives of the socialisation. It was not the intention to give the impression that I am standing by some outdated view, but I believe we both see the same reality and are horrified by how fast it is going. In principle, it is children who are on their way home from school and happen to pass the wrong gang on the way, and then they have no other choice than to become gang criminals. That is how fast it can go.

To conclude, I would still like to feel the pulse of the Minister for Justice and ask him to exemplify which parts of this market can possibly be reconsidered.

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam President! I thank you for this debate and also for the concluding question.

To return to the fundamentals, it is extremely important that we, if we are to succeed in reversing the development, need to do several things simultaneously - strike hard against gross violence, strangle the criminal economy and work methodically to break the new recruitment of children and young people into this crime. Not infrequently, there are gaps between these parts.

When it comes to which actors should be involved and contribute to solving the major societal problems we face, or are in the midst of, it is important to say that different actors with high quality and serious intentions - municipal actors, actors from civil society and voluntary structures, as well as actors from the business sector - all will be needed if society's resources are to be mobilized around this.

An enormous problem regarding the HVB homes in Sweden is that the number of places is far too low. A very critical and glaring problem across the country's municipalities is that far too few families can imagine contributing their home to children and young people on the slide who need to break their destructive existence and end up in a safer, more secure, better, and value-wise higher-quality context. We will not be able to solve this with anything less than civil society stepping forward and being ready to take its part.

I believe that the measures that must be taken concern the licensing side, the supervision side, working much more offensively with business prohibitions, and a screening of different actors that must have a completely different depth of intention. Many more must be told no in the first instance. The requirements to obtain a permit to run HVB homes must be raised. That is the way I assess is the best to drive away unserious actors.

Then we can talk about the resource issue. It is serious and important when it comes to the schools in the municipalities where the HVB homes are located.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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