Young offenders

Fredrik Kärrholm (M)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the Committee on Justice's report on young offenders in light of the motions on this area that were raised during the general motion period.

Let me begin by stating that the government is now working intensively and purposefully to prevent and counteract crime among young people. This work is primarily based on the ambitious Tidö Agreement, which aims to fundamentally transform crime policy. The government intends to shift the focus from the perpetrator to ensuring the crime victim's right to redress and society's protection against crime.

Young offenders have long been treated differently in a criminal law context. Their special needs must, however, be weighed against the interests of the crime victim and the societal need for sufficiently severe penalties. In January last year, legislative changes came into force which meant that the sentence reduction was abolished for offenders in the 18-20 age group in cases of serious crime. This was a step in the right direction, but the government wants to go further than that.

Particularly problematic is that the sentence reduction can still come into question for several types of crimes that have a clear connection to gang crime. The question of completely abolishing the sentence reduction for young minors is currently being investigated so that legislative proposals can be submitted to the Riksdag as soon as possible. As stated in the Tidö Agreement, an investigation shall also review the sentence reduction for young people under 18 and consider a lowering of the age of criminal responsibility. This is a very important task.

Mr. Speaker! In order to counter youth crime, which today to a large extent has a clear connection to serious gang crime, more measures that are powerful and effective will be needed, but at the same time, we must not compromise on fundamental requirements for legal certainty and respect for privacy.

The Riksdag is currently preparing a government bill on tougher penalties for crimes in criminal networks. In the referral to the Council of Legislation that forms the basis for the bill, a new penal provision is proposed, among other things, which makes it a criminal offense to involve persons under 18 years of age in criminal activities.

Mr. Speaker! Now we are settling the matter of chaos and naivety. Suspected murderers shall not be granted citizenship – they shall be deported. Young criminals shall not be granted ridiculously short sentences that mean one can sit in a comfortable sofa with free internet and easily be able to escape and take a little vacation whenever one feels like it. Now we are closing Circus Sweden.

Mr. Speaker! In order to reduce crime and increase safety in society, an effective and evidence-based crime prevention work must also be carried out. If one reads the Tidö Agreement carefully, one can observe that there are no fewer than 22 points concerning crime prevention work. In addition, the Moderaterna have previously presented a 52-point program with preventive measures. Many of these measures focus precisely on young offenders. During the previous parliamentary term, the coalition partners also forced the previous government to take several measures and appoint several inquiries. The government is currently carrying out a very extensive and broad work with this as a starting point.

Early and coordinated measures in close cooperation between social services, schools, the police, and other actors are needed to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in crime. The government is investing just over 1 billion in crime prevention work. Sweden has also received its first dedicated Minister for Social Services. This testifies that the government is doing its utmost to invest in social and early crime prevention measures, while penalties are being tightened for dangerous, seriously criminal individuals who need to be locked up to protect honest citizens.

From and with July 1, the municipalities will also receive a clear responsibility for crime prevention work, regulated in law. According to the new law, the municipalities shall produce a situational picture of crime and decide on an action plan as well as take responsibility for the crime prevention work. In this context, young offenders in particular are a central aspect.

A special investigator has also been tasked with analyzing and proposing an arrangement with youth crime boards. The purpose is to achieve clearer measures when children and young people have become involved in crime, as well as to enable earlier, sufficient, and more coordinated interventions to prevent youth crime.

Crisis social services on call shall also be established to provide support to the social services in their work against crime committed by young people.

Even children who are in the risk zone of being drawn into crime and their families shall receive better support and more help from the public sector. The Government has therefore allocated 200 million kronor to a reinforcement of the parenting support during 2023 and intends thereafter to allocate 200 million kronor per year from 2024. Together with previous investments in the area, this means that a total of 400 million kronor is allocated annually to increase access to parenting support.

Mr. Speaker! Extensive and broad work is being carried out in the areas touched upon by the motions. Right now, a long series of investigations are underway - and more will be appointed - to get new and better legislation in place as quickly as possible. To preempt this work would be unwise. Against this background, I move for approval of the proposal in the report and rejection of all motions.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Richard Jomshof (SD)

Mr. Speaker! I am convinced that we, regardless of where we stand politically, agree that it is a great failure when young people end up in crime. The issue is highly topical, not least considering the escalation of organized and increasingly violent crime in recent years, where young people are all too often involved.

To tackle the problem, we must naturally work preventively; I have no other opinion. I am also convinced that all parties here in the chamber consider that preventive work is important, even if the parties may not always agree on exactly what the work should look like.

In the Tidö Agreement, under the heading Crackdown on youth crime, we specifically point to parental responsibility and the importance of enabling early interventions for children who commit crimes or who are in the risk zone of doing so. This is not least about expanding the initiative on parental support programs. A national initiative was needed that takes a holistic approach to the issue. The goal is that this shall be available in all municipalities in the country.

It is also proposed that the Social Services Act should be amended in order to give the social services extended powers to decide on early and mandatory interventions for both children and their guardians. A so-called 24-hour guarantee shall also be introduced, which means that there shall be an obligation for the social services to call the parents for a meeting within 24 hours after a child has been arrested for a crime. The purpose of this is, naturally, that the social services shall attempt to persuade the parents – this is important – to participate in interventions that are to be supportive of the child and the family.

These are good proposals, and I am completely convinced that they will be of use. We must, however, remember another important thing: Despite all the years of preventive work and a long series of different interventions, we de facto have a situation that is starting to deteriorate completely. Something more was needed.

Mr. Speaker! It is often stated that the situation in many of our suburbs requires special attention, and that is certainly the case. However, we must remember that today's very serious situation is a direct consequence of a deliberate policy from both the previous government and earlier governments. The problems have not arisen in a vacuum or of their own accord.

As I often point out from this rostrum, it is no secret that many forms of the crime that we see in our society today can be linked to a failed immigration policy and to a large dose of naivety among a long line of political parties and governments. This has given rise to today's society, which has become increasingly divided and increasingly segregated.

Therefore, a conscious policy will be required to break this negative spiral and to seriously attempt to remedy the problems. A policy without blinkers is needed – a policy that takes off from an open and honest discussion about the actual causes of the problems. A policy that takes off from reality is needed. Trying to explain away the situation, as some do, by saying that it would be due to poverty or too few preventive measures no longer holds, because it is not true.

Mr. Speaker! It is naturally the case that municipalities are and shall be an important part of the crime prevention work, but just as we write in the Tidö Agreement, crime fighting is primarily the state's and not the municipalities' responsibility. The state should take a clear responsibility, not least when it concerns young people who commit very serious crimes and when it concerns gang criminals. Therefore, the responsibility shall be moved from the municipalities to the Prison and Probation Service.

Furthermore, special youth prisons shall be established, for which the Prison and Probation Service shall be the primary authority. The intention is that they shall replace the special youth homes that Sis is currently responsible for, where sentences of closed youth care are normally served. The latter is highly relevant given that the person who was released last week during a supervised leave was placed in exactly a Sis home. He should, naturally, have served his sentence in a special youth prison.

Just this unique event - unique it is not in itself; this has occurred previously - which occurred last week is interesting. It concerns the same person who murdered the father of three, Fredrik Andersson, at a gym in Stockholm just over a year ago. It is not enough that the person was granted Swedish citizenship after the murder, when he was in his home country Armenia last year fleeing from the police, which is hair-raising. He was also sentenced only to closed juvenile care for two years and eleven months. I want to assert that this is a mockery.

As the previous speaker was in, it is completely obvious that the sentence reduction must be reviewed, not least for persons under 18 years of age. At the same time, we must consider a lowering of the age of criminal responsibility. These proposals fall within the framework of the Tidö Agreement and shall be investigated.

Among other proposals that have been negotiated regarding youth crime, we find, for example, proposals to review the law on young offenders with the aim that secret coercive measures should be able to be used against persons under 15 years of age who commit serious crimes. At the same time, body searches and house searches should be able to be used to a greater extent than today when it concerns those who are under 15 years of age and commit serious crimes.

Mr. Speaker! In conclusion, I would like to say something further that is important and which I usually touch upon.

It does not matter whether we are talking about shootings, bombings, gang rapes, robbery with humiliation, or last year's riots in Koran - in a clear majority of cases, the perpetrators have a different background. This applies in particular to the young perpetrators. This is how reality looks, no matter what we may think about it. It is not about blaming anyone, but this is the reality. We must somewhere dare to acknowledge how reality looks.

I want to assert that it is about values, or rather, about decisive differences in values and in how we view each other and the surrounding society. The parallel societies that it often concerns have been allowed to emerge through a conscious policy. That is where we have the greatest failure. We will never solve these problems if we do not acknowledge this.

I want to assert, which I also usually emphasize, that we must dismantle the multicultural society. We must drastically reduce immigration and combat Islamism. We must try to ensure that all those who have foreign citizenship and who have come here, received citizenship and committed serious crimes are deported and sent back home.

There are, in fact – and this is extra important – an enormous number of people out there, both ethnic Swedes and people who have another background, who want nothing more than to be a part of this society. It is about people who live in the suburbs that I mentioned earlier, which are incredibly hard hit by this crime. They want to contribute and be a productive part of society, but they do not always get the chance.

Therefore, these problems must be handled in a completely different way than we have handled them so far. We must recognize and safeguard the culture and the values that form the basis of this society. We have built something good here in Sweden. It is these values and this society that the people who come here shall be invited into. They shall be invited into our majority culture and our community, but then we must also be clear about which values apply here and that those who do not comply with them actually have no business being here, regardless of where they come from.

Only then, I believe, can we seriously handle and combat these problems. It will not be enough with preventive measures and harsher punishments. Both things are important, but we must also do the latter.

With this said, I move for approval of reservation 7.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! Much has already been said by the previous speakers Fredrik Kärrholm and Richard Jomshof. I do not, therefore, intend to repeat what is stated in the Tidö Agreement, as it should be well known by this point. I will therefore not take up time with that.

I did, however, want to mention what the previous speaker has touched upon: the alarming development with young people committing particularly serious crimes. Gang criminals provide young boys with automatic weapons that are used in shootings, which we have witnessed, not least in the Stockholm area. Police report that they have arrested several under the age of 15 who have driven around in the city with automatic weapons, which is obviously completely unacceptable. We also have 15-year-olds who have been detained suspected of fatal shootings, possession of weapons, and serious weapons offenses.

It is not enough, for as recently as a little over a week ago, a 15-year-old was remanded in custody on probable cause suspected of forgery or preparation for a terrorist offense with links to the Islamic State. And just a few days ago, a 17-year-old murderer under threat of weapons was released and driven from the scene.

So, there is a clear and distinct escalation of violent crimes, while it can also be stated that the perpetrators are becoming increasingly younger.

Mr. Speaker! Both the Swedish Police Authority and the Swedish Security Service have expressed great concern regarding the development of events, which they believe must be taken most seriously. Many of the identified crime-active individuals are, as stated, under 15 years of age and thus are not subject to criminal responsibility, which means that the judicial and law enforcement authorities currently have limited possibilities to intervene.

As the previous speaker mentioned, the Tidö Agreement takes this into account, and much work is underway. I will therefore not dwell on that but mention some other things that I think are important from a crime prevention perspective.

I believe we all agree that it is fundamentally about trying to limit new recruitment to the gangs. We Christian Democrats believe that the family is central to combating crime because the family is the very foundation of our society. A secure family gives secure children. Fundamentally, it is about values and a parental responsibility. The parental role has an immensely great significance.

Highlighting good examples is also important. In the vulnerable areas, there is a lot of displacement, but it is important that there are people in these areas who show that one can achieve success through hard and honest work and who are good role models for the young. Today, much of that is missing.

Families who are in the risk zone should receive the help and support they need. Here, the so-called SSP groups can likely play an important role in identifying which families need support. For those who do not know, SSP is a group composed of school, social services, and police.

However, there are currently obstacles in the form of secrecy legislation that does not always keep pace with the times. It is therefore important to liberalize the secrecy legislation and make it possible for authorities, not least at the municipal level, to exchange information with one another.

Mr. Speaker! The school has an important and, in large parts, decisive role for the development of the young. Admittedly, it is the parents' responsibility to raise their children, but it is inescapable that the school environment has a great impact on the children. It is therefore of great importance that the school is perceived as a safe place where there is peace and quiet and clear rules that create order and that the teacher is the guarantor of this as the adult in the classroom. Here, the teachers need to be given support and backing. Bullying and harassment must be condemned. We must recreate the safety in our schools.

As mentioned, we also need a social service that is better equipped to handle young criminals. The social service performs good interventions, and there are social intervention groups that have a good cooperation with the police. But experience shows that it happens that young people manage to develop heavy criminality before intervention measures are taken. In the training of social workers, perhaps more focus must be placed on how to handle young criminals in a better way than what is done today.

There are also small things that can be done. For example, money has been allocated for a leisure card, which is specifically aimed at children in vulnerable areas who may not have the financial means to engage in healthy activities but now receive financial assistance for an active and meaningful leisure time.

Children and young people need to be given better access to good examples that create the conditions for a good adult life with good values, and the proposals and measures that have been made by the government work in this direction.

Mr. Speaker! With this said, I move for approval of the committee's proposal.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Wallentheim (S)

Mr. Speaker! We are back here in the chamber to debate the Committee on Justice's report Young Lawbreakers, a report that contains motions from the general motion period on matters such as coordination, youth care, crime prevention measures, and so on.

Once again I stand in the speaker's chair because I, like others, see that more needs to be done. But I also stand here to say that we must see the whole picture, not just parts of it. Politics is about will, but it is also about daring to see and daring to say that the Committee on Justice is only a small piece of a large puzzle that we all have a responsibility to assemble, and that the political will must also exist in other committees for actual results to be achieved.

In this report, there are two reservations from us Social Democrats, which we of course stand behind, but I choose to move for approval only to reservation number 5, which is just one of those important corner pieces for being able to put the puzzle together.

Mr. Speaker! Let me start by being clear: Society's fight against crime must be relentless. The serious crime among young people is a problem for our democratic society, and it must, of course, be combated.

From the perspective of politics and from the perspective of the legal system, we must be clear that those who commit crimes and are old enough can expect a tangible punishment. We must also be clear that we stand on the side of the victims and that society supports when someone is subjected to a crime.

But when we debate young offenders, we must remember that children are children, and society's greatest responsibility and our greatest political responsibility is to protect the children and give all children and young people in Sweden the opportunity to become their best selves.

Here we have failed. Children who commit crimes and harm others are, in fact, the ultimate proof that we adults have failed.

Everyone here knows that children and young people growing up in areas where criminals have great influence run an increased risk of being involved in organized crime. We know that when children and young people fail in school, the risk increases that they end up on the wrong path already at a young age, which hinders the possibility of a first job and a first home and of living up to the demands that society places on adults. We know that long queues to BUP and social services and a lack of good school health services mean that children do not get the help they need, whether it concerns physical or mental well-being or an unsustainable family situation.

Mr. Speaker! As late as last week, I heard stories from Järva about how children, already from an early school age, risk falling into debt to the gangs operating in their home environments. By listening to these children and other children from vulnerable areas, we learn that something as small as saying yes to an ice cream can cause one to fall into debt to the criminal gangs. After that, the spiral is in motion, and through threats against the individual child or against the family, one is then stuck in something that one does not dare or can break free from.

Therefore, we must talk about children, about young offenders, as both perpetrators and victims. It is we adults who have failed. It is society that has failed, and thus the children become victims of the crime that is occurring. They become victims who are forced onto a criminal path, victims who are forced to become perpetrators.

All crime occurs locally and must therefore also be prevented locally. Young people who end up in crime need a way out from the environments that exacerbate their problems, and no young person who is in the danger zone of falling into crime should fall between the chairs.

To stop the new recruitment to gangs and break this negative development, more early and coordinated interventions are needed. For this to happen, confidentiality barriers preventing information about young people from being shared between the police, social services, school, and other relevant actors must be removed.

The Social Democratic government appointed an inquiry into these issues in the spring of 2022, among other things to facilitate a coordination between different actors and authorities. This is now a task we are following with great interest. This is what our reservation 5 is about, among other things, and we hope that the new government will promptly return with proposals to the Riksdag regarding this work.

Mr. Speaker! We live in a time when the alarms regarding crime, car fires, fatal shootings, and so on are unfortunately recurring. Parallel to this, society exhibits the Swedish school showing ever-increasing disparities. There are a number of schools in socially disadvantaged areas where not even half of the students meet the requirements for ninth grade. There are even schools in disadvantaged areas where the majority of the students do not qualify for upper secondary school. This must be classified as a pure school failure. We know that it is precisely those young people who fail in school who risk ending up in the wrong environments, committing crimes, and being sucked up by criminal networks. The police have in their reports confirmed that students who do not succeed in school are more easily recruited into criminal gangs and commit serious crimes. Getting young people to complete their schooling is, in other words, a must for society.

Just as in other debates, however, this gives me the opportunity once again to criticize the Swedish school system. We have a school system where we allow profit-driven companies to operate and treat our children and young people as customers - profit-driven companies that, despite obvious shortcomings, such as fewer qualified teachers, weaker student health services, cheating with grades, and increased school segregation, are still allowed to operate. But these are also schools that fail in preventive work. What many do not know is that because we have a school system where schools do not need to follow the principle of public access, these schools do not always participate in preventive work.

I have visited several local police stations, and this is something that has repeatedly emerged as a concern regarding the municipalities' crime prevention work. It is stated clearly there that when the private schools do not participate in this work, the local crime prevention council, the police, the municipality, social services, and others risk being left without information and without the possibility to act. This is something we can neither nor should accept. The school is the frame in the puzzle we all must piece together.

Mr. Speaker! It is when faith in the future is lost that gangs and violence become an alternative. We must continue to fight the crimes, but also the causes of the crimes. The most effective way to prevent young people from choosing criminality is to offer something that is better: a good education, something meaningful to do in their free time, a first job, and the opportunity to move out of the family home.

Together we must work so that we do not have any vulnerable residential areas where young people do not manage in school. Together we must ensure that there are no parts of our society where children do not see their parents go to work because they have not learned Swedish. Together we must stop the negative development of areas where community life is retreating and where adult role models are lacking. Together we must solve the housing crisis, the overcrowding, the drug trade, and the absence of the state and authorities in our vulnerable areas and rural municipalities. Together we must ensure that we break people's exclusion. Only then can we break the criminals' rampage and save our children and young people from becoming both victims and perpetrators.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Richard Jomshof (SD)

Mr. Speaker! I thank the member for the speech! Regarding the question of schools, I naturally share the problem picture that we have a long row of schools where far too many children leave school without passing grades. That is the case. There is also a long row of schools in far too many suburbs and municipalities where hardly any Swedish children attend at all; one does not, therefore, come into contact with any Swedes. Then it becomes difficult, naturally. Or take school classes where teachers are to handle students who come from a long row of different countries. It is time-consuming, and it is difficult to make the teaching work. Many of these children do not even receive the education they are entitled to because of the way things are.

In general, when it comes to the school system, I want to assert that school segregation is primarily a consequence of residential segregation. Residential segregation is a consequence of deliberate policy. There is no party that has governed Sweden as long as the Social Democrats. Then one must also be able to say – and I do – that if there is anyone who bears the blame for the way it looks, it is the Social Democrats, given how long you have governed the country. You have been given the chance many times to rectify and do something about the problems, and yet it looks the way it does today. It is very serious.

I do not agree that we have failed or that society has failed. If by society one means the Social Democrats and supporting parties, I agree. But I have no guilt in the fact that it looks the way it does. There are many of us who have no guilt in it, but it is those who have governed the country who have pulled it in a certain direction.

However, I do not intend to ask questions about the school system, even though there is much to say about it. I am more curious about whether Anna Wallentheim and the Social Democrats are willing to do what is required. The problems can be linked to exclusion, immigration, segregation, and division. That is where we find the young criminals, regardless of what we think about it. It is extremely regrettable. Are the Social Democrats willing to do what we want: dismantle the multicultural society, drastically reduce immigration, and send home all the Islamists and others who plague people in the suburbs to make life safer for those who still live there?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Wallentheim (S)

Mr. Speaker! Richard Jomshof requests a reply to me and begins, among other things, by talking about the school. Then he also wants to talk about systems and that the Sverigedemokraterna do not stand behind the problems.

Let me be clear then: We have an unfair school system in Sweden, which we are completely unique in the world in having. Other countries look at Sweden and say that is absolutely not how we should do it. The Social Democratic government tried during the last parliamentary term to make a difference on this. We tried to stop profits in welfare, and we wanted to introduce restrictions precisely because we saw that this led to people, especially our children, risking falling into paths that we did not want them to fall into. There, the Sweden Democrats are part of the problem, because you chose not to follow the previous government's decision regarding this. Thus, the school issue is something that you also must take responsibility for.

When it comes to the other, I am not surprised either by the interruptions or the questions. The Sweden Democrats and the governing parties often want to jump on the previous government and say that it did too little. I then want to remind the member that the Social Democratic-led government during the previous mandate period introduced 80 new penalties or penalty increases. Some penalties were completely new. We also increased the funds to the Police Authority in a historic increase. We have opened more police training programs and so on. To say that we have not addressed this is to try to deny the truth or hide facts.

Since then, Richard Jomshof has completely different solutions to this. He wants to point out that it is immigration that is the problem. I want to point out that it is the increased privatization, the cutting of agencies and cuts to the state - to throw people under the bus and say that they should manage on their own and to allow private health insurance and that people are allowed to buy their way past the healthcare system and so on. There we have a problem that the Sverigedemokraterna and Richard Jomshof always want to deny.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Richard Jomshof (SD)

Mr. Speaker! Even if we removed the free school choice, only introduced municipal schools and did everything that the Social Democrats want in that area, the residential segregation would still remain. It is still so, I want to assert, that the big problem today with the way it looks in many schools is a consequence of the residential segregation.

People settle in certain suburbs and certain municipalities while others move away from them. That is where we have the problem, and it is a consequence of a deliberate policy. It is a consequence of the immigration policy we have had for a very long time. It has created this segregated society.

I want to assert that it might possibly affect the margin if the Social Democrats were to have complete control over the school issue. The fundamental problem would still remain. There would still be Islamists who plague people, fill them with Islamist poison, deliberately segregate them, try to drive them away from the surrounding society, lie about our institutions, commit serious crimes, and try to dismantle our democratic society. That is where the main problem lies.

My solution is very simple, just like the Social Democrats'. We can very well discuss school issues. We can very well discuss everything else. But the fundamental problem still remains, and that is why I ask the question whether the Socialdemokrater are willing to actually seriously discuss the problems that underlie why it looks the way it does. We talk about youth crime, and there most have another background, regardless of what we think about it. It is damn hard. I regret it, but that is how it looks.

There are older Islamists linked to groups with completely different values than those that form the basis of our society, and it is them we must fight. That is why I ask the question if you want to dismantle the multicultural society, significantly reduce immigration, and send home all those people who only work to destroy for everyone else, regardless of background.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Wallentheim (S)

Mr. Speaker! Let us begin by being clear: Most people in our country do not commit crimes. Most people get out of bed every day to go to work, school, SFI training, higher education, and so on. People do the right thing. It is an image we should talk about significantly more instead of constantly trying to blacken the situation in Sweden, because most people in our country are good people who do the right thing.

The Sweden Democrats would like to talk about a policy where one wants to work both on crime prevention and crime fighting, and together with the government parties, you have presented the Tidö Agreement with several points that you believe would lead to better politics in the crime area. But let me be clear that while you do that, you are acting completely differently. The Sweden Democrats, together with the government, chose to lower taxes for high-income earners and remove the support for affordable rental apartments. You chose to starve the welfare system.

If we are to seriously talk about crime, Member Jomshof, we must also look at increasing support to the municipalities, where the crime prevention work is of greatest importance. For my part, these political decisions are completely incomprehensible. I actually do not understand how cuts in school and social services and in labor market training and investments in society are to contribute to increased cohesion or to break the crime.

The government neither sees, hears, nor understands people's cries for help. The government has the chance, but despite that, does not make a difference for the people. You make a difference between children and children! There you must take responsibility.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Juno Blom (L)

Mr. Speaker! Now we are debating young offenders. I think that the most important thing for all of us must still be to find out who these young people are. Who are these children and young people who are recruited into crime? I truly agree with the Social Democratic member Anna Wallentheim that not everyone commits crimes. I am completely convinced of that. It is completely true.

I think that in the debate we many times simplify the reason why people commit crimes based on economic incentives. If that were the reason, very many more would commit crimes. I also think that it is very offensive. I have worked for many years in vulnerable areas, met families who struggle very hard and do everything to make ends meet but who truly put enormous energy into being there for their children, creating a safe home and creating conditions so that they will not be recruited into crime.

I also think that when children, sometimes unfortunately only eight or nine years old, are recruited into crime, we have probably been poor at handling an honor oppression that begins as early as preschool. I am thinking about the state failing and not being present, and I believe that is exactly what many of those children express.

In a report from Malmö, it is described how staff experience demands from parents for gender segregation and how small children's bodies are sexualized, especially girls'. Staff experience that there are demands for brothers to control their sisters and see indications that cousin marriages are being planned. Staff feel concern that female genital mutilation may have occurred and meet children who have been beaten.

There is also staff who report that they have colleagues who provide support for the demand to segregate girls and boys, and that is the basis for the honor-related values and norms. Colleagues express that they do not really know how to act when they identify that it is so. There is staff who lack guidance and who try to navigate between policy documents which, on the one hand, say that the preschool should strengthen children in their culture and origin, and on the other hand, that the preschool should establish democratic norms and values that concern precisely equality and equity.

I truly understand that staff can be subjected to enormously difficult conflicts of objectives because we in this chamber have not dared to address those conflicts of objectives. It is still the case that on one side of the street, there is a push for gender-aware preschools, and on the other side of the street, small girls in preschool are forced to wear veils. It is precisely this that leads to parallel societies arising. They arise because politicians and officials have allowed them to arise. The parallel societies are the breeding ground for crime and the recruitment of children and young people into criminal gangs. But it is also the case that these children get a feeling that the rights that exist in our country are other children's rights and not their rights.

I believe it is incredibly important to dare to challenge parental rights, start talking much more about parents' responsibilities and obligations, and dare to talk about norms and values. Carin Götblad, who works with this within the police, says that it is not just any children and young people who are recruited into crime, which is the theme for the debate we have today.

I also think that we should get better at daring to analyze to a greater extent what actually is the basis for why some children end up in these enormous difficulties. I agree that these children have a double vulnerability, as I believe Member Wallentheim said. They are children who have been failed early, and they are children who also many times have a demand on them to victimize others.

We have an incredibly important task ahead of us in producing research and seeking knowledge and facts. If we are to start working preventatively and it is decided by law, it is extremely important that we know what it is we are to prevent and what needs the different children we encounter have.

Gender research is an interesting factor given that gender research argues that gender is a social construction, and I share that view. Gender depends on which societies and contexts one grows up in. We must have a greater interest in finding out what it looks like in municipalities where there is a high proportion of young boys but also girls who are recruited into right-wing extremism. What norms and values exist in the environment where these children are to develop their gender roles? What does it look like in Rosengård? What norms and values do boys and girls encounter there? What does it look like in Södermalm?

We must dare to see that even though children are equal and should have the same opportunities, they encounter very different contexts, and that affects them. Our duty is fundamentally to do everything we can. I agree that school is centrally important, and preschool is even more important when it comes to shaping children. It is very difficult to reach values that have become rooted. The earlier we can intervene and talk about this, the greater the opportunities for children to feel security and trust. Preschool is, therefore, important.

I am also thinking of all the mothers and fathers I have met in marginalized areas who have moved to Sweden and dream that their children will be able to read, study, and move forward. Even if it does not quite sound like that today, Sweden is in many ways a fantastic country where opportunities are given. But if we do not ensure that there is a school for these children, the right conditions are not provided. Even there, it becomes an enormous betrayal.

In conclusion, we need to have a greater focus on finding out what lies at the basis of why some children run a greater risk of being recruited into crime. What can we learn? How can we produce research? How can we ensure that knowledge exists when we know that the most important thing we can do is to create safe and trusting children? That is how we can build the country together.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Gudrun Nordborg (V)

Mr. Speaker! I move for approval of two reservations, partly number 3 on social intervention groups, partly number 4 on an action plan for boys and men.

The issue of young offenders that we are discussing now is, as the Left Party sees it, primarily about acting preventatively, and we shall do so as much as we possibly can. We must try to organize society as well as possible in order to prevent conflicts and segregation.

It is important to start already in the social planning itself. How do we build a society so that we get a varied development with different housing forms? In the same local area, there should be both rental apartments and condominiums, terraced houses and villas without large distances or separating roads. It is a factor that can mean very much for bridging gaps that we have too much of otherwise.

I am a Norrlänning and reside in Umeå. There, we have to some extent been able to fulfill this important principle in community building, and it has contributed to the fact that we, in any case, do not have an explosive development of crime among young people.

When we discuss this, I experience that there is often a big-city perspective. Gang crime is serious - I am not saying anything else - but it exists primarily in the large cities. If we are to work with preventive measures, we must do so generally with measures that work in the entire country.

I believe that the general base is important, regardless of where in the country one is. Likewise, it is extremely important to have a functioning welfare state that provides a basic security where families do not need to break up because of temporary unemployment or a temporary crisis. We must have systems that catch these situations. This means that if the family fails, there is a society that functions compensatorily. As several have already said, the school and the preschool are most important here to catch signals about risks.

I want to bring up a system that I believe strongly in and that others have also raised. It is a system that is used throughout Västerbotten. One tries to introduce something called the early line, that is to say early interventions, or HLT, health, learning and safety. It concerns health centers and schools, but sometimes also preschools. Social services are responsible for the safety. These gather around children who may have a problematic situation, and one has contact with the family.

It is about being able to intervene very early. Many teachers and others who meet children – often when they are young – say that they can see when there is danger ahead. One must act much earlier.

I believe that one can work a great deal with the secrecy legislation that we have today. One can work out consent – then it goes well – and cooperate around a family. But we may need greater opportunities for secrecy breaches in order to protect young people against a development that risks going badly. One must get in contact with both the young person and the family in a different way.

I previously spoke about how violence and crime are created. We must acknowledge the fact that boys and men unfortunately dominate greatly. There is a problem with the so-called gender roles. We have great opportunities to work in a principled way already in preschool and school and to notice and discuss the incredibly cruel macho cultures.

Another thing that has been raised earlier is something that I also want to mark against. When we cooperate regarding young people, we will not get anywhere when it comes to the private schools. There, it is completely closed. They do not want to participate in projects like these. I believe that this experience exists from crime prevention work across all of Sweden. Also, this is a major structural problem that we should do much more about.

Then it is also about the economy. It is clear that criminal activities can be more triggering and more tempting if one lives in a limited economy where the family can almost afford nothing. The governing parties have invested much more in tax cuts than in protecting the welfare's safety net. Due to the cuts we unfortunately see now, many children experience dramatic poverty. They can then be more easily lured into criminal activities. They might even choose it themselves.

Many young people commit isolated crimes, but most do not continue. The vast majority perhaps do not commit crimes at all, more than possibly snatching something in a store on a single occasion and then being terrified of what will happen. We must nevertheless take these early signs very seriously. It is here we must support families and not least single mothers, who sometimes completely unfairly have to answer for not doing enough to protect their children when it might actually be a violent father who is the underlying problem in the family and one should have received support and help much earlier to cope with the situation.

Young lawbreakers

I also want to mention the two reservations that Vänsterpartiet has submitted. One concerns the crime prevention work that can be implemented with the social intervention groups, which can take slightly different forms. Brå has recommended how one can work effectively and evidence-based in a long-term way with such plans. The other concerns boys and men and how we can curb the destructive part of masculinity and the macho culture that risks spreading in a sharper way today than when we had stronger pressure on feminist reforms. I want to emphasize that feminism is something that benefits society as a whole and ensures that we live in a more equal and equitable way.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 11.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)