Response to interpellation 2024/25:544 on girls in gang crime
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns girls in gang crime and the government's work against crime. M argues that the government is carrying out extensive reform work to reduce crime and strengthen the position of crime victims 1. M emphasizes that women's participation in criminal environments is more widespread than previously assumed 1 and appreciates that girls and women are being made visible in the issue 2. M highlights that removed secrecy barriers and secret coercive measures against children under 15 are important tools 3 4. S argues that girls are doubly vulnerable and demand a gender-sensitive strategy with exit programs and trauma treatment 5. S argues that the municipalities lack resources due to cuts in welfare 6 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)
Mr. Speaker! Anna Wallentheim has asked me what measures I intend to take to ensure that girls' vulnerability within gang crime is made visible and that the right interventions are in place to help them get out of crime and exploitation.
The Government is carrying out intensive and extensive reform work to reduce crime and strengthen the position of crime victims. At the same time, knowledge regarding women's and girls' participation in criminal networks is limited, even though the different roles of women and girls in criminal environments have been increasingly highlighted in recent years.
The police have also noted that the justice system and other actors often identify women and girls primarily as victims. This has meant that women's actions in criminal environments have not been highlighted and clarified to a sufficient extent. But women's and girls' involvement in criminal environments is more widespread than what has previously been assumed.
To increase knowledge in the area, the government has tasked the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Brå, with studying which crimes and activities tend to be carried out by women and girls in criminal networks. The assignment also includes studying the situation of women and girls and their vulnerability to violence. Brå shall also submit findings and recommendations regarding how women's and girls' involvement in criminal environments can be countered.
Preconceived notions about women's and girls' participation in crime risk leading to them neither being identified as criminal actors nor receiving the help they need to be able to leave crime behind. Actors who work with support for defectors need to be able to identify situations and carry out interventions to a greater extent in cases where women and girls are involved in organized crime.
In light of this, the government tasked the Swedish Police Authority, the Prison and Probation Service, the National Board for Institutional Care, and the National Board of Health and Welfare in October last year to adapt the work regarding support for defectors to the circumstances that may exist when girls and women are involved in organized crime.
We also know that women and girls who are subjected to prostitution and human trafficking are exploited by organized crime and in criminal network environments. Even persons without previous experience of being subjected to prostitution are sexually exploited, for example, for the purpose of paying off debts. The Government prioritizes the work of preventing and combating exploitation in prostitution and human trafficking. Among other things, the Government strengthened the support for those who are subjected to prostitution in the latest budget bill by 10 million kronor for this year.
The government's plan to push back organized crime is set: We will strike hard against gross violence, strangle the criminal economy, and break the recruitment of children and young people. To increase the power and precision of our measures, we also ensure that knowledge of women's and girls' participation and vulnerability within gang criminal environments increases.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! In the public debate on gang crime, it is often young men who are in focus. But the picture that is now emerging, among other things in the report Invisible and Vulnerable – Girls in and Exploited by Gang Crime, shows something else, namely that even young girls are in the middle of the criminal environment – but under completely different conditions. Their vulnerability risks remaining invisible.
The girls we are talking about today are, as mentioned both in the interpellation and by the Minister, doubly exposed. On one hand, they are exploited in criminal activities as transporters of weapons and drugs, and on the other hand, they are used to launder money. We also see links to all more serious crimes. But even more often, they are also themselves victims of abuse – both psychological, physical and sexual.
We know that several of them already from the beginning carry with them difficult experiences of domestic violence, trauma, mental illness or poverty. This makes them extra vulnerable to recruitment, manipulation and men's coercion.
We therefore need a clear gender-sensitive strategy that can see both the vulnerability of young men and women. This could, for example, involve making women's situation visible through mapping and in statistics. It could involve developing specific exit programs that include both trauma treatment, protected housing, and long-term support. It is also about giving both the school, social services, and the justice system better tools to catch these young girls who are drifting and to protect those who are in the risk zone.
The report, which is an important basis, also shows that political force is needed in this. This is the background to why I have submitted this interpellation to the Minister of Justice. For just as the Minister mentions in his answer, the justice system, the Swedish Police Authority, and other agencies have assumed that women and girls are victims. Now we see, however, that they are also involved in criminal environments in a completely different way than we have previously seen.
As reality has caught up with theory, it is also becoming clearer that women are not only being exploited. They are also being drawn into criminal activities in a more extensive way than we have seen. As recently as yesterday, it was possible to read in Helsingborgs Dagblad about a drug ring that was discovered, where half of those now indicted are women. In chats between the women, they have also stated that they do not actually want to be a part of this.
It is clearly a betrayal that society has not seen this development or noticed it more clearly earlier. Political responsibility is required to rectify this. It is good that Brå is tasked with both mapping, making visible, and producing recommendations for this group, but that does not help the girls who are vulnerable already today, here and now.
My question to the Minister of Justice is therefore: How does the Minister intend to ensure, even today, that girls in gang environments do not continue to be rendered invisible based on the knowledge that the report I have mentioned covers?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Anna Wallentheim, for the opportunity to speak about these important issues today!
I want to emphasize the basic chord in the interpellation and in my answer. It is the important experience of, or insight into, that the girls and women we are talking about have precisely double experiences. It is often in that way. They have experience both as perpetrators and as victims of crime. It is quite true that there has probably been a perception of women and girls as only victims. It has also caused the justice system's, and not least the crime fighting's, possibilities and effectiveness in the work against this group to not at all have been at the level we desire. It is therefore so important that the question is now on the table and that, despite everything, a more precise perception of what the problem looks like is formed quite quickly.
I want to point out two tools. One entered into force as recently as this week, and the other we hope to have in place later this autumn. These have a great general significance and not least a significance when one wants to approach, and access, problems that previously have not been fully made visible. It concerns the removed secrecy barriers that entered into force at the beginning of the week. It also concerns the possibility of using secret coercive measures even against children under 15 years old – I mean that this must also be able to occur preventively. This will be a very important tool, and according to our plan, it should be in place in October. It is introduced in order to be able to identify even these participants in the criminal networks at an early stage and to be able to implement preventive measures early to break destructive patterns.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! It is positive that the issue is being noticed more and more. It is also positive that we can now tear down these confidentiality barriers. I know that both the Minister and we members have received a lot of knowledge and requests that it needed to be changed. These are important steps, but the question is whether it is enough.
At the same time as we stand here in the chamber and debate this today, there is a silent reality out there where women and young girls are drawn into gang crime. They are used as transporters, they are used as targets, and we unfortunately know that they are also used as means of payment in the gangs' environments.
I understand that the Minister also speaks about the need for more knowledge. This is needed, I agree. But we already know some about this. We know that many of these young girls come from homes with trauma, they come from homes with violence and they come with mental illness. We know that they seek safety but are met with manipulation. We know that when society fails, it is easy to catch these young girls who are suffering. Then the step into crime becomes all too easy and the way out almost impossible.
Here, the municipalities play a decisive role. I want to be clear about that. We do know, however, that many municipalities are already on their knees today. They are already struggling today to succeed in catching all the young boys who are drifting away. They do not have the resources to also see these silent girls. When welfare is trimmed and cut back, the possibility to work preventatively is also reduced. The girls simply risk being prioritized away.
Cuts in welfare can never be the solution to crime. We need gender-specific exit programs where one can work with protection, care, and long-term perspectives. Transprofessional teams are needed where police, social workers, and schools can cooperate and be gender-aware regarding how things look both for young boys and for young girls. Targeted and general resources are also needed for our municipalities and regions so that they can tackle this problem.
My question to the Minister of Justice is therefore: How does the government intend to ensure that girls in gang environments are not forgotten, when we have a situation where the municipalities' resources are already strained and insufficient to reach all the young boys who are drifting?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! One important way to achieve this is, of course, to obtain the underlying material that we have now ordered from Brå and which is to arrive after the summer. It shall both illuminate the problem and the structures – how this looks – with high resolution and propose precise tools, measures, and methods to address it.
It would naturally have been much better if the basis had been available earlier, but it has not been. Now we are doing this work, and it will give us in Sweden – whether we act nationally, municipally, through a state agency or in another context – better basis and more effective tools to address this issue.
I want to take note of what Anna Wallentheim says. This does not mean that we completely lack knowledge today; on the contrary, we stand here and speak of a problem from a basis that nevertheless says a great deal about the depth and breadth of the problem. Those insights are being implemented with full force already today, for example, in the police's work.
When it comes to the reform that entered into force on April 1 and the dismantling of the secrecy barriers, I would still like to say that it is easy to, so to speak, skip over the major reforms once they are in place. Speaking of Brå, I was at their 50th anniversary a few months ago, and as is usually the case at anniversaries, a quiz was held. One question was what the first issue of Brå's magazine Apropå, which came out 50 years ago, was about. The answer was that it was about dismantling the secrecy barriers.
It has been 50 years, and now it is here on the ground. I would say that it is significant, not least for women and girls, and not only in the gang crime context but overall when it comes to vulnerability to crime. Just to draw a parallel to another area, namely violence against women: The clearance rate for murders of women occurring in close relationships is 100 percent. That is not where the shoe pinches; the problem is that there is no information in the system earlier so that, for example, the police can ensure through preventive measures that the murders do not occur in the first place.
To a large extent, it is also so in other areas of this kind, meaning that a lack of information in crime fighting also makes it more difficult to take preventive measures at an earlier stage. With the information sharing from other parts of society – such as the municipal social services, the school environment and other – into crime fighting that will come when we reach full power in the reform that entered into force here earlier this week, it is my opinion that the police will get better conditions to work more precisely and with greater effect even against that group of both crime victims and perpetrators that we are talking about here today.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answers. I appreciate that the question of girls' vulnerability is now on the agenda. It is needed, and we need to be even more people who talk about this.
I notice that the Minister shares my view on the problems, and that is obviously very important. On the other hand, I miss the Minister's response regarding the municipalities' difficult economic situation. How are municipalities that today do not even have time to catch all the boys who are drifting also to succeed in catching the girls who blend in, are silent and adapt until it is too late? The welfare must be the first and strongest intervention against crime. When it is dismantled, it is the most vulnerable who pay the price.
It is of course sad that a right-wing government does not want to see that problem and does not give the municipalities and regions the resources they actually need, but as usual chooses instead to lower the taxes for the richest. We cannot just stand here and talk about that we should be tough on crime itself, but we must also build strong communities where there are adults around our children and young people. Early interventions are required, a safe adult presence is required, and real ways out of crime are required.
If we are to take crime seriously, we must also take the reality of our children and young people seriously. If we are to be able to prevent crime and defend the most fundamental thing in our society, which must be people's right to be safe, we must also provide increased resources to our regions and municipalities so that we can start where we must start.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! In the discussions on justice policy, there are one or two rounds where I greatly appreciate much of what is said, but then we habitually end up in a perhaps slightly more left-leaning discussion on economic policy. I can also take that question.
Firstly, I can state that there was a time when the Social Democrats spoke about the value of pushing back inflation. This has now been done, admittedly in uncertain economic times. We have done everything we can to ensure that the municipalities' money, just as much as the citizens' money, does not lose in value. It is incredibly important so that they can invest in welfare. It means that municipalities and regions, just regarding reduced pension costs, have more than 50 billion kronor more to move with this year compared to last year. It is incredibly important.
Secondly, I can state that there was also a time when Social Democrats spoke about the importance of work and the work line. Increased taxes, we now see in the form of tariffs and duties, which will have exceptionally negative consequences for ordinary people. Also, high taxes on work have such consequences, which is the driving force to lower taxes on work and ensure that people get into work and obtain their own livelihood – and in that way contribute to financing the welfare which, of course, is completely central to the crime prevention work.
In that part, I think that Anna Wallentheim, whom I appreciate very much, unfortunately does not have greater rigor than anyone else on the left wing. But otherwise, I greatly appreciate what is being put forward from the speaker's chair here, that is to say, the importance of highlighting girls and women who in different ways have been rendered invisible in this issue – both as victims and as perpetrators – and that we are now with joint forces pushing the issues onto the agenda and making them visible, ensuring that it becomes a better basis for decision-making and furthermore will add tools that can forcefully tackle this situation. It is excellent.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.