Response to interpellation 2025/26:382 on the basis for legislation in the field of crime policy

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Ulrika Westerlund has asked me what reasons lie behind the fact that I and the government go against referral bodies, researchers, and the Council on Legislation when political proposals are presented, and what grounds I and the government have for various trade-offs that have been made in legislative projects in the area of crime policy.

The government is restructuring the crime policy to restore safety in Sweden. This is something that we have built opinion for over a long period and received the voters' mandate to implement. A central part concerns the punishments. For far too long, Swedish criminal law has taken too much consideration of the perpetrator's interests and too little for the crime victim's redress and society's need for protection.

The government's legislative proposals in this area are preceded by thorough investigations, referral to a large number of referral bodies, and extensive analysis and processing in the Ministry of Justice. The investigations usually include a review of statistics, research, and legislation in Sweden and comparable countries. The largest investigations have been led by some of the country's most experienced investigators in the field of criminal law. Adjustments are also often made based on comments from referral bodies and the Council on Legislation. This provides a solid basis for high-quality legislation.

Last week, the government reached a decision on a bill and a referral from the Council on Legislation which together address the proposals from the Criminal Justice Reform Commission. As the interpellator has pointed out, the Council on Legislation has objected to the proposals in the bill that the government has moved forward with. A central part of the criticism is that it questions a general increase in the level of punishment if the purpose is to reduce crime in society.

It is first and foremost important to remember here that punishment is always a balance between different interests, for example, making the perpetrator a better person, teaching the perpetrator "a lesson" that deters him from committing new crimes, deterring others, protecting society through the incarceration itself, and providing redress to the crime victims.

Research shows that punishment is more or less effective depending on which interest one wants to satisfy. But punishment is also largely a matter of values, such as which norms one wants to emphasize in society and how one views justice. In that respect, it becomes a political trade-off how high or low the punishments should be.

The Government sees a great need to strengthen society's protection against crime. Research shows that incapacitating those who commit the most crimes has an effect on crime levels in society. The gang criminal who is locked up cannot order new shootings or recruit more children. The serial rapist who is locked up cannot commit new assaults. But the Government also wants to see a clearer focus on the victim's redress, i.e., the administration of justice in the individual case. We believe that reasons of justice speak strongly for increased penalties generally.

The proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 13 years for certain serious crimes is rooted in a very dark situation. Last year, over 50 children under the age of 15 were involved in legal proceedings for murder and murder plots.

There is limited research on how to most successfully break this development. However, we know for certain that what has been done so far has not worked. The current order succeeds neither in protecting society against life-threatening violence nor in breaking the children's destructive paths.

By lowering the age of criminal responsibility and time-limiting the regulations, an opportunity is given to manage an emergency situation. At the same time, in the social law area, one gets a chance to focus on preventive work with the help of new tools, for example the new Social Services Act and removed confidentiality barriers.

Regarding the question of the analysis of in what way Kriminalvården is better suited than Statens institutionsstyrelse, Sis, to care for young people who have committed serious crimes, the proposals are based on an investigation that carefully analyzed the reasons for and against. Consideration was taken, among other things, of research showing how children are affected by deprivation of liberty. Conversations were held with children who were sentenced to closed youth care. That the investigation proposed that prison should replace closed youth care was due, among other things, to that Kriminalvården has better opportunities to offer support and supervision during the transition to freedom. Through the reform, Sis's activities can be purified to more clearly refer to a care mandate.

The government's criminal justice reforms are about increasing people's safety, strengthening the redress of crime victims, and making the system more just. That the Riksdag now, after an extensive preparation, is to take a position on the proposals is completely in line with the order that prevails in our democracy and rule of law.

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Ulrika Westerlund (MP)

Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for Justice for the answer. It contains several parts that I want to address in this discussion.

The Minister of Justice repeats, among other things, something that often recurs in the debates in the Committee on Justice, namely that this government has a crime victim perspective while previous governments in some way focused on the perpetrator's interests. I consider this to be a clear misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the measures that previous governments have taken.

The government seems to mean that the increased penalties in themselves constitute a victim's perspective. This can be strongly questioned because crime victims are not a homogeneous group and harsher punishments are not necessarily what everyone desires.

I assume that all parties have as a goal for their crime policy that crime should decrease, that is to say that fewer people at all should have to experience being a crime victim. In that case, more aspects must be taken into account than just improved retribution in the form of harsher sentences after a crime has already been committed. Also interesting in this context must be that the person who is punished does not commit new crimes and create new crime victims. It then becomes interesting to also focus on the Prison and Probation Service's possibilities to carry out rehabilitative treatment so that a previously convicted person can be reintegrated into society and move away from a life in criminality.

Being in prison in itself involves several risks, for example that a criminal identity is strengthened or that more criminal contacts are established. It also means an increased risk of recidivism. The chance to counteract this decreases if the burden on the Prison and Probation Service increases – which it will do, significantly, with the government's proposal. The Prison and Probation Service estimates the increased need for places to be almost a tripling compared to today if all of the government's reforms are implemented.

Among others, the MR Institute has also pointed out that if all of this becomes a reality, Sweden would come to have prison populations per capita at the same level as Russia and Turkey.

In that context, it should be important to know that the reforms have an effect that offsets all these risks. That is not the case, however. The Council on Legislation has pointed out that the government has not presented any basis that provides support for the expectation that the increased penalties can achieve this result, i.e., that crime will decrease and safety will increase – which is, of course, what we all want.

In his answer, the Minister points out, among other things, that a person who is in prison cannot commit new crimes. That is, of course, natural, at least usually. But it is also, to say the least, interesting what happens when the person comes out again.

Furthermore, society's resources are not infinite. The very large costs that the government is now placing on the taxpayers, approximately 17 billion per year, could instead or at least partially have been spent on strong preventive measures. It is also a crime victim perspective: that fewer people should even become crime victims.

If the government had wanted to emphasize its victim perspective, it could also have advantageously increased the support to the crime victim helplines with the very small amount in this context, 15 million, which they assessed they needed to maintain the operations.

Mr. Speaker! For the sake of clarity, I can mention that also previous governments, including the one where Miljöpartiet was involved, took measures that resulted in increased penalties and criminalization of phenomena that were not previously criminalized, for example, recruiting children to commit crimes. We also focused on tightening penalties for sexual offenses.

I say this to emphasize that I also, of course, understand that political measures can be taken without there being support in research, for example, if a government discovers a need for new legislation. However, we see no intrinsic value in increased penalties, which is my impression of the government's measures that the government is taking.

When one carries out such a far-reaching reform, which the government itself claims is the largest reform of the Swedish penal system since the Penal Code was introduced, the burden of proof becomes heavy regarding efficiency and results. When the criticism is then so heavy and so extensive, the government should back down and take the criticism to heart instead of forcing through the changes.

I therefore wonder what the considerations were. And why are more resources not being invested in preventive work?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Ulrika Westerlund, for the opportunity to discuss these extraordinarily important issues today!

Let me begin with the question of crime victims. Punishment is, of course, not the only way to compensate crime victims. A long series of different things are required to both compensate and support crime victims. We also do very much in terms of crime victims, not least regarding the possibility of obtaining crime damage compensation without having to personally pursue the money from the perpetrator. We give clear mandates to the various actors in the justice system to provide crime victims with better support. We are reviewing the possibility of separating issues from criminal cases into civil proceedings, where crime victims, for example, must pursue issues regarding damages in a special order with large cost risks as a consequence. We do a lot of different things to strengthen the position of crime victims.

With that said, there is no doubt that in Swedish criminal law – and that is hardly anything new – there is a long row of different interests that must be weighed. The three that typically are highlighted are the protection of society, the perpetrator's various aspects, and the crime victim's various aspects. We mean, in short and good, that the crime victim's perspective, precisely regarding the sentences, has been far too under-discussed and has not been handled in a sufficiently good way.

That can be seen if one looks at criminal law. One of the proposals that we are now submitting to the Council on Legislation is to remove a number of the so-called grounds of equity. In a high-profile case in Örebro District Court, an older man had his sentence for child pornography crimes reduced precisely because he was older. Someone else had their sentence reduced because they lost their job as a consequence of the committed crime. This is a perpetrator perspective in criminal law that I do not think holds weight if one is to have a crime victim perspective. Therefore, it is important for us to present proposals that remove that type of consideration so that the crime victim's perspective will have greater impact.

In that context, it cannot be ignored that the level of punishment is naturally also central. We say that the penalties should reflect the severity of the crimes, but crime victims may, from their perspective, experience that they do so to a greater or lesser extent. It is clear that individual crime victims can have different views, but if one looks at it generally, it is nothing new to think that the level of punishment is also part of the compensation for crime victims. There, we simply mean that the penalties are generally too low, if one wants to emphasize the interest of the crime victim more than the interest of the perpetrator.

The second thing I would like to comment on is that there are no grounds regarding our motives for wanting to do this. I have just accounted for one of the grounds: We believe that the crime victim perspective must achieve a greater impact in criminal law. It is, of course, ultimately a matter of judgment how one views it. It is also guiding when it comes to other proposals, for example, that we now want to review and remove today's bulk discount. We want more crimes to be counted, more crimes to be prosecuted, more crimes to be solved and more crimes to lead to a penalty.

It is clear that it will result in increased pressure on the Prison and Probation Service, but we do it because we want more crime victims to receive the redress that it nevertheless entails that the crime they were subjected to is investigated and prosecuted and hopefully also leads to a conviction. It is a very tangible way to strengthen the position of crime victims and an incredibly important part of the motives for this reform, which we have also explained in great detail.

Then it concerned the effect on crime levels in society. As I said: Depending on which effects one seeks, there are naturally different degrees of support in the research, but when it comes to the significance of incapacitation for reducing crime levels in society, I still dare to assert that the research support is quite intact.

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Ulrika Westerlund (MP)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you again for the answer, Minister!

I want to go back to the interpellation answer itself. There, the Minister for Justice mentions the new Social Services Act and removed secrecy barriers as examples of measures in the preventive area. But the possibilities to work preventively also depend on economic resources.

The government has chosen not to give the municipalities what they themselves have stated they need. This obviously makes it difficult for them to live up to a very important element in the new Social Services Act, namely to work on crime prevention in addition to everything else that is also to be carried out. How is it to be possible when many municipalities also lack money for, among other things, a sufficient number of preschool teachers and social secretaries? Their work must naturally also, in the long run, be seen as crime prevention, albeit a bit more fundamental.

The Minister of Justice mentions in his response that there is limited research on how to best break the recruitment of children into crime. That is the case. On the other hand, there is a great deal of experience from Sweden and other countries from activities that have shown success. They have not been fully tested throughout Sweden.

Regarding the considerations behind why just this type of measure should be taken, the government says that what has been tested so far has not worked, that we must try something new and so on. But this would also be to do something new. One does not just need to lower the age of criminal responsibility and put 13-year-olds in prison, but one could on a large scale try other activities, which I know the Minister for Justice is aware of, for example, among others, the police's project Rätt kurva. There are also projects driven by Skandia in Idéer för livet, where a former police officer has chosen to get involved because he thought it was more meaningful. There are activities such as Ung Trygg at Magelungen, and so on.

I know that the Minister is well aware of these activities. They all emphasize the importance of the same types of interventions: to work closely with young people in risk zones together with their entire network and provide support where it is needed, for example by ensuring that parents get work if they lack it, ensuring that the child gets access to leisure activities, or helping the whole family to move and leave an environment where the child has been drawn into crime. All of this costs money. But we have not fully tested what happens if all children who are in need of this type of targeted monitoring receive it.

Mr. Speaker! This is a debate that has several aspects, and I also want to say something about children in prison. The Minister for Justice has answered that the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility is being done because we find ourselves in a very dark situation. We do, but why the government landed on exactly 13 years, I lack an answer to. An investigation proposed 14 years.

Those who investigated the question of whether the Prison and Probation Service should take over the responsibility for convicted minors emphasized that they had not investigated this with regard to a lowered age of criminal responsibility to either 14 or 13 years. The investigation also found that a potential reduction would provide good reasons to retain the sanction of closed youth care for this group, i.e., the younger ones. My question as to what the age of criminal responsibility of 13 was based on remains. Can the government imagine lowering it further? Why did they stop at exactly 13? It is a clear violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Minister knows. I also wonder if it played no role at all. It was not included in the considerations that the government made.

The transfer of responsibility for convicted young people to Kriminalvården also feels quite hasty when, at the same time, an investigation is ongoing regarding the design of Sis and how Sis can be improved. I am sure we agree that there is great potential for development. Why not increase Sis's possibilities to improve aftercare instead of giving Kriminalvården responsibility for a completely new group of people – very young people – with different needs than the group currently admitted has? This applies in particular to school education. How does the government view Kriminalvården's possibilities to provide functioning school education for a group of young people with very large challenges?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Regarding changes to the legislation concerning crime prevention work, it is quite true that a new Social Services Act has been introduced. In the near future, proposals will also be presented regarding what is called intermediate measures, i.e., opportunities for more offensive work with families who say no to the social services' interventions.

Removing secrecy barriers, a review of LVU, and an ongoing review of state youth care are examples of very large measures to provide opportunities to move the needle in crime prevention work. Regarding economic investments in relation to this, for example when it comes to the Social Services Act, a budget investment of nearly 10 billion kronor to the municipalities is linked to that change. After having looked at many budgets that Miljöpartiet has been involved in signing, I can say that there have been no 10 billion for Swedish social services there. It is a record amount linked to the great shift and the great potential that lies in the change.

I have also looked at the municipal level. Miljöpartiet is involved and governing in Stockholm. Here, one probably borrows a million per hour? Furthermore, they have raised the tax by 5,000 kronor or something similar for an average family and still manage to underfund the social services. It is therefore about what one does with its money locally and how one prioritizes. The national level cannot compensate for everything.

The second thing I would like to highlight is again the importance of preventive measures. I am in favor of everything that Ulrika Westerlund mentions in that context, for example Rätt kurva and other types of programs of that kind. But I just want to say that they in no way stand in opposition to the very difficult question of what we do when preventive measures are not enough. Already today, it is de facto the case that children and young people commit serious crimes and are sentenced to closed juvenile care. Our goal is, of course, to shrink that group as much as it is possible. Preferably, one does not want any 13, 14, 15, or 16-year-olds who commit serious crimes. Obviously, very much that has not been done previously must be done to break this pattern.

Those who are 13, 14 or 15 years old today were somewhere around 3, 4 or 5 years old when Miljöpartiet last was involved in governing. We cannot make preventive measures against what was or was not done previously. We must do very much else.

We will not escape the question of what we should do when children and young people nevertheless commit serious crimes. This brings me to the major measure the government is working on now. To begin with, it is as I explained, that the transition to youth prisons when it concerns 15, 16 and 17-year-olds is extremely well-investigated and has very good reasons for itself.

There is no doubt that when crime penetrates even further down into the ages, we are faced with partially similar, partially different questions. The reason that 13- and 14-year-olds are included here is that we have seen a development there. I mentioned that it concerns just over 50 children under 15, primarily 13–14-year-olds, who commit very serious crimes. When it comes to the 15, 16, and 17-year-olds, we must leave the Sis-arrangement, which, for example, has a 90 percent recidivism rate among children who commit serious crimes linked to the gang environment. That arrangement is so bad that we must leave it – but you want to let in the 13- and 14-year-olds into that failed arrangement. I think that is very irresponsible.

Now we are building up something incredibly good in the Prison and Probation Service. I dare say that from an international perspective, it is probably the best that has been built regarding young people who commit crimes. That in that situation not to also consider letting 13- or 14-year-olds who commit serious crimes be part of that order, I personally do not think is particularly logical. I will gladly come back and elaborate on which reasons make me believe that we must consider it in the situation we are currently in.

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Ulrika Westerlund (MP)

Mr. Speaker! This is, as said, a broad debate. The reason why we believe that municipalities should receive greater support from the state than they currently do is so that they do not end up in situations like the one in Stockholm where one borrows or raises taxes. We believe that there should be greater support from the state, and for the sake of clarity, I can also say that we have included this in our budget. We believe that the state is making insufficient investments in the state budget to support the municipalities in their important crime prevention work.

I still do not hear any answer as to exactly why one has landed on just 13 years. There are those who say that a further lowering of the age of criminal responsibility could cause crime to creep even further down in age. At least some researchers argued that it seemed quite clear when, for example, the sentencing discount for young adults was removed. That was also something that Miljöpartiet contributed to. Then crime crept down in age. That must be taken into consideration.

The minister must nevertheless acknowledge that the decision to lower the age of criminal responsibility and transfer young convicted persons to Kriminalvården has been met with massive criticism. It is not something that Miljöpartiet has made up. A united civil society has stated that they do not recommend that these changes be implemented.

The Minister has mentioned in previous remarks that several different types of measures have been taken to increase various penalties. A criticism of that investigation, which was carried out by a very qualified person, was that no review of the entire Penal Code was conducted. Some things have been done here and there, and the Penal Code and the penalties have become something of a patchwork.

A fundamental question I have is why the government is in such a hurry. There are several different investigations ongoing that are not finished, for example by Sis, but the government is rushing through and speeding up the changes to the Penal Code. It doesn't really hold together. One is introducing a very far-reaching change with a lowered age of criminal responsibility. Why is there such a hurry?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Yes, 62 were killed in gang shootings in 2022. That was the last year that Miljöpartiet was involved in governing or in any case supported a left-wing government. Therein we have an important part of the answer as to why it has been very urgent to take the right intervention measures to push back crime. The fact that over 50 children under 15 were involved in murders and murder plots during the last year is another important reason that speaks for some urgency when it comes to breaking the development.

It is excellent that this question is being raised. Miljöpartiet is now making itself the foremost advocate for what some have called slow politics, which means that we should not act hastily when we see very large societal problems. We are still talking about a mandate period. It must be possible to carry out far-reaching reforms also in the area of criminal law in processes that take a mandate period.

Apart from the fact that we are losing touch with reality and social problems, I believe that we are otherwise losing the citizens, in any case a large part of the citizens who really want such a change. One sees that crime victims are exposed to an all too high degree for serious crimes. One sees that society is not protected against serious crime. It is clear that some promptness is nevertheless required.

It is not quilts we are talking about. For the first time in 60 years, a complete grip is being taken on criminal law. If one adds the bill that we sent to the Riksdag on Thursday to the referral to the Council of Legislation that went out the same day, we see the broadest holistic grip that has been taken regarding Swedish criminal law in over 60 years. Possibly the grip that was taken in 1989 was also fundamentally important.

The reason for this is very simple. It has been patched and repaired for so long that we have now had to take this measure. The question remains: What is Miljöpartiet against, if we speak about the substance? Is it the double sentences for gang criminals? Is it that repeated cases of aggravated rape should be able to lead to life imprisonment? Is it that we must once and for all find ways to break the destructive patterns surrounding the children?

We will have to return to that question, if we leave the question of process and gradually move on to speaking about the content of the policy.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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