Response to interpellation 2025/26:288 on sex offenders in community care
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned the placement of sex offenders in community care and the governance of the Prison and Probation Service. M believes that those convicted of sex crimes must never be placed in facilities with children 1 and that the Prison and Probation Service takes the matter most seriously 1. M argues that the government is making record-breaking investments in expansion and regulatory review 2 3 and that efficiency, productivity, and follow-up are important 4. M believes that a significant effect is public safety by locking up dangerous individuals 4. C believes that it is unacceptable for the state to enable those convicted of sex crimes to be placed in direct contact with children 5 and that the expansion is proceeding too slowly 6. C argues that it is serious that internal functions raised problems with governance and management 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! Ulrika Liljeberg has asked me how the government, in light of SVT's review of the Prison and Probation Service's community placements, has acted prior to SVT's review to ensure that the Prison and Probation Service is not working in the manner that has emerged in the review, as well as what I consider to be the reason for what has happened and what is being done to ensure that it will not happen again.
Persons who have been convicted of sexual offenses are never to be placed in activities where there are children. Such placements also contravene Kriminalvården's routines and internal governance. Kriminalvården takes what occurred most seriously and has assured me that measures are now being taken so that something similar cannot happen again.
I also view the findings that emerged in SVT's review very seriously. When the information reached me, the Prison and Probation Service was immediately called to a meeting with the Ministry of Justice. Subsequently, the government has tasked the Prison and Probation Service with providing an analysis of the causes of what occurred, as well as what measures the authority has taken and plans to take to ensure it does not happen again.
I will, of course, follow up on the execution of the assignment very closely.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for Justice for the answer.
My question was prompted by the review conducted by SVT Nyheter in Skåne, which showed that Kriminalvården's placements during the years 2024 and 2025 of persons sentenced to community service had occurred at locations that were clearly unsuitable.
In at least 17 cases, persons convicted of various types of sexual offenses have been ordered to serve their sentences in associations with activities for children and young people. They had, among other things, been ordered to organize children's parties, help out at 4H farms and participate in homework help. In some cases, the convicted persons committed new sexual offenses while serving their community service.
Centerpartiet appreciates the review, but it demonstrates very serious deficiencies within one of Kriminalvården's most fundamental areas. That the state enables those convicted of sexual offenses to be placed in direct contact with children and young people is completely unacceptable.
After SVT's revelation, the government has now acted, but the decisive factor in being able to assess the government's ability to take responsibility is how the government's governance and management of Kriminalvården in these matters looked before the revelation.
The Minister said here: "When the information reached me, the Prison and Probation Service was immediately called to a meeting with the Ministry of Justice." He also said that the Prison and Probation Service promised that it will not happen again. I want to say that I in no way distrust that the Minister for Justice takes this and what has happened seriously. The Government governs with budgets, regulatory letters, and an ongoing agency dialogue.
The Prison and Probation Service is one of the largest agencies and is in a period of great expansion. There is a possibility that one can be in good faith regarding an agency's ability to carry out its mission, but in a report from the Prison and Probation Service's internal audit that arrived in October 2023, the internal audit pointed out several deficiencies in the follow-up of the decisions made by the management.
The internal audit found that there is a risk that any errors and failures will not be detected or rectified in time if the agency does not address the deficiencies. It was stated that there is a lack of structured decision follow-up and that there is a high risk that errors and failures within Kriminalvården are not detected. A work culture was described as silent and unattractive.
The report received significant attention, among other things in Ekot in November 2023. At the time of the report, the Minister for Justice had held his post for one year, and now in 2026, SVT's review arrives, which concerns the two years following the internal audit's review.
My question to the Minister of Justice is how one acted before the current information reached him, given that it has obviously been a known problem within the Prison and Probation Service.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Ulrika Liljeberg, for the opportunity to discuss this very important issue today!
Why was it that it appeared so serious? Well, for a long series of different reasons. To begin with, it is a given starting point in the regulations that apply to the Prison and Probation Service that dangerous sex offenders shall not be placed together with children or, for that matter, in other contexts where they can pose a risk to others. This in itself makes this very serious, without me for that reason being able to assess every individual placement. I have no basis for doing that, but we are talking about the review as a whole.
Something else that is very serious here is that it will cause a breach of trust, not only in relation to the general public and other parts of society but also to a very high degree in relation to the operations that step up by providing workplaces for those sentenced to community service. It is an important social contribution for which there is no obligation to perform.
It emerged in the segment that there are operations that have experienced not having knowledge of what kind of persons they were receiving or that they in any case experienced not having been able to take a position on the issue. This can lead to them not daring or wanting to take the risk of doing this here in the future. This is naturally extremely serious also for the possibility of carrying out the sentences in a good way going forward.
Against that background, it was of course very important to quickly form an understanding of whether the problem had been known within the Prison and Probation Service previously, which it had not been. It was also a novelty for the Prison and Probation Service and its management. One could say that the full picture did not emerge until the review was on the table.
In that situation, the Prison and Probation Service informed me that some measures had been taken immediately. One was, of course, to go out to the authority and emphasize the routines, the regulations, and the methods that apply within the authority for the work with community service placements. In light of the issue of trust specifically, it was also highlighted that there were reasons to consider new national routines regarding the provision of information to the community service sites, i.e., the workplaces that receive these convicted persons, and how the routines regarding the provision of information to that type of actor should look. But those were, one could say, two quite intuitive measures in that situation. The reason we gave the assignment was that we, in addition, must ensure more things.
To begin with, this was an investigation carried out by SVT in Skåne or Malmö. Are there more and similar examples, historical or ongoing? How does one ensure, in that case, that it comes to the surface? And, above all, what is done to stop any further incidents or placements of this kind and ensure that it never happens again? My perception is that Kriminalvården responded with great seriousness in the way one has the right to expect in this situation.
Regarding the broader issues, it is clearly evident, also in our management of the authority, how important it is to have channels and systems to identify any irregularities and bring them to the surface in order to be able to review and rectify them in a systematic manner.
I am fully aware of the review from 2023 and have no reason to distrust Kriminalvården's general ability to handle suspected irregularities. I will gladly return to that here in the future.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Mr. Speaker! I believe we all appreciate SVT's review of this and the importance of public service. It was Ekot that reported on the review that came in 2023. But I believe we all still think that the most important thing is that the government that has received the power and the responsibility also takes that responsibility.
It became clearly evident in 2023 that there are deficiencies in governance, management, and follow-up of decisions. We can only hope that SVT happened to see the case where it has not succeeded. We don't really know that.
It is serious when there is a breakdown in governance and management in an operation as important as the Prison and Probation Service. They have tasks that are important for all of us – to house inmates, if I may say so, but also to provide rehabilitation with the vision of "Better Out."
As has been said, there is no lack of political ambition in this country, but there is sometimes a lack of execution power. I will say that I and the Center Party view the work that has been done against serious organized crime positively. That the fatal shootings are decreasing is positive. But with the large resource increases that have been made to the justice system, it bothers us to have a lower level. In this case, it concerns crimes against children, sexual crimes against children. That we then have a state agency under the Ministry of Justice that, in the worst case, has facilitated the possibility of committing new crimes is appalling.
I have said it before and I say it again: If you have a parliamentary majority, it is easy to pass laws and allocate a budget. The difficulty is to govern and lead.
Last year, JO reviewed both prisons and detention centers in light of the double-staffing we now see as standard. In the review, sharp criticism is directed at Kriminalvården regarding risks for both employees and inmates.
We stand behind an expansion of the criminal justice system, but we think it is proceeding too slowly. My question to the Minister of Justice is therefore what additional measures the Minister intends to take for a more functioning criminal justice system.
We are also now in a situation where a large number of bills will be placed on the Riksdag's table that in no way will reduce the pressure on the correctional services. We have had a good and important focus on prosecutors and police for a time. But there needs to be an equally large focus on the correctional services so that we do not create powder kegs in prisons, but rather create prisons that live up to the Correctional Services' vision Bättre ut.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Let me first say something about this matter of investigating irregularities in the criminal justice system. I think it is extremely important. There can also be suspicions of irregularities or suspicions of other problems that can arise in all activities within the public sector – suspicions of bias, corruption, crime, or whatever it may be.
I want to emphasize that it is clear that there are systems in the Prison and Probation Service to catch that type of misconduct and review it in a serious manner. There is, for example, an explicit whistleblower function that makes it possible for everyone in the Prison and Probation Service to report that type of suspicion. Then we have the external review, not least through the oversight of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, which is also extensive.
We all have a very strong interest in that any potential irregularities and suspicions of such always come to light and are scrutinized in a proper manner, whether externally or internally, in order to rectify inaccuracies and, for that reason, demand accountability if that is what the situation requires.
I am following this closely, and should there be reasons to steer further or push more in that direction, I am always open to it. It is absolutely crucial in an operation of the criminal justice system's nature, which is responsible for one of the most intrusive things we have in our democratic state of law, namely the state's ability to imprison persons and restrict individuals' freedom in a very intrusive way. It is, of course, a legitimate interest that we can do so, but obviously such an operation must also constantly be under scrutiny.
There is no doubt that the correctional services are in what we can call a vulnerable position. It is a long series of different factors that lie behind it.
One is, of course, the societal development and organized crime. We do not need to go into the whole history today, it is well known, but to take just one figure, we saw during the ten-year period 2012–2022 a tripling of the fatal shootings as the tip of an iceberg of criminal economy and very much more. It has created a very great pressure on the Prison and Probation Service.
Another factor, and a very great success for our society, is that the police have become immensely better at solving not least the serious gang-related crimes. It is about serious crime and long sentences. It has created a very strong pressure.
To this is added the inability of previous governments to initiate the expansion of the correctional services in time. I had reason to go through the requests from Kriminalvården a number of years back in time and could see that the agency, not only during the last parliamentary term but during the term before that, repeatedly underlined to the government that they saw this growth need. It took until far into the last parliamentary term before decisions were made in that direction. In eight years, there were new places equivalent to two Kumlaanstalter – to compare with the fact that only this parliamentary term will we land on new places equivalent to seven Kumlaanstalter.
Social development and the fact that crime rates are rising, in combination with the inability to initiate the expansion of the correctional services in time, has undoubtedly placed the Swedish Prison and Probation Service in a difficult position.
That is why we are doing so incredibly much now. We are making record-breaking investments in expansion and a review of all regulations that affect the Prison and Probation Service's opportunities to conduct an operation that is both safe and meaningful.
A long series of measures are intended to alleviate the pressure on the Prison and Probation Service. This includes everything from leasing prisons in Estonia to expanded opportunities to use electronic surveillance and new forms of execution such as controlled housing and a focus on youth supervision concerning sentences outside of prison – all of this with the aim of both protecting society against serious crime and ensuring that the Prison and Probation Service is provided with good long-term conditions to carry out its important work in a safe manner.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Mr. Speaker! It is well known that the Center Party has stood behind, in large part, all the proposals and initiatives that the government has placed on the Riksdag's table. There is some legislation that we have said no to, as we did not think it was effective, but for example, all budget reinforcements we have stood behind.
It is important that we get results for that money. We will soon be up to 100 billion for the justice system if we continue the increase we have made now. That means we need to have high demands on the operations. We need to tackle the serious organized crime but also the violence against children, the violence against women and the crimes against public order throughout the country. Here we are in agreement.
The Minister for Justice says that it is important that we catch this and, for example, have whistleblower functions within the Prison and Probation Service. It was precisely such an internal function that raised these problems in 2023 and stated that there were problems with governance and management and with getting out the decisions that both the Riksdag and the government as well as the management make. This is serious.
I appreciate free media. I appreciate public service. But I think it primarily falls upon us in the public sector, which also has internal audit, to take care of this. We also have other public oversight functions, such as JO, which have also addressed this. I welcome SVT's scrutiny, but it is important and befits a government with these high ambitions in a vulnerable position regarding crime to handle this in a different way.
I will return to the issue, especially regarding the expansion of the Prison and Probation Service. It is vital for Sweden's security moving forward.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Once again, thanks to Ulrika Liljeberg for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today!
I completely agree: When we invest so much of the taxpayers' money in a society-critical activity such as the Prison and Probation Service – which I believe there are very good reasons for us to do – it both increases and underscores the demands for order and regularity in everything from economic management to governance in general. Therefore, it has also been very important in our governance to emphasize precisely efficiency, productivity, and follow-up – that one anticipates problems rather than the problems catching up with you, for example through external audits.
I am prepared to do much more to strengthen this. It does not only concern the Prison and Probation Service; if I were to mention another agency, I would say the Swedish Police Authority – not for any reason in such a way that I suspect there are a lot of undiscovered irregularities there, but just to emphasize the importance of really following up on operations in an expansive stage, both regarding economy and efficiency and regarding governance and oversight in general. I just want to confirm this.
Effect can be measured in different ways. We do that as well, and I think it is very important to do so. A substantial effect of Kriminalvården's activities is, after all, the public safety it delivers by incarcerating dangerous individuals for longer periods. That we can undoubtedly measure. Furthermore, we also want to be able to use the time in the institution in a good way so that we would preferably also be able to measure reduced recidivism rates, to take one example, for the inmates.
In order for the Prison and Probation Service to have better conditions to fulfill that task, the record-breaking expansion that we are currently in must continue. I hope for broad support for this here in the chamber.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.