Gang violence at home hampers Sweden’s EU vision
Wave of attacks comes as Swedish government seeks to
focus on six-month presidency of the Council of the EU.
Police believe the explosive was thrown in retaliation
for a New Year’s Eve shooting outside a McDonald’s restaurant in nearby Vällingby
|
BY CHARLIE
DUXBURY
JANUARY 12,
2023 4:02 AM CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/
STOCKHOLM —
Outside an apartment block in Grimsta, a suburb on the Western edge of the
Swedish capital, a mother and daughter cried out in shock as they saw for the
first time the football-sized hole left by an explosive in the front wall of
their home.
Police
believe the explosive was thrown in retaliation for a New Year’s Eve shooting
outside a McDonald’s restaurant in nearby Vällingby, one of several recent
eruptions of gang violence across Stockholm which have left three dead, several
others injured and the facades of housing blocks shot-up, charred and missing
glass.
“We are
terrified,” the mother in Grimsta said, not wanting to give her name because
she feared for her safety. “We know the explosive was probably targeting one
person who lives in our building, but it affects us all,” she said.
For
Sweden’s new government, elected in September in large part on a commitment to
tackle gang-related crime, the spike in bloodshed over Christmas and New Year’s
represents a threat to its credibility with voters. Gang crime was the defining
issue of last year’s election campaign, and new Prime Minister Ulf
Kristersson’s commitment to tackle the violence is arguably the policy area
that most tightly binds his minority center-right government with the far-right
Sweden Democrats (SD), who back him in parliament.
Kristersson
has vowed to deliver a “paradigm shift” in criminal justice by using, among
other things, longer prison sentences to get gang members off the streets and
deter new recruits. While it remains early days for his administration, there
is little sign of a turnaround yet.
In
Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28
deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as
well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388
shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the
number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year.
It is
already clear that the violence has continued into 2023. Last week on
Wednesday, a man was shot dead at a train station in Jordbro, on the southern
edge of Stockholm, and last Thursday, a bomb was thrown into an apartment block
in nearby Farsta, damaging a stairwell.
Police suspect
gang conflicts, many with their roots in competition for control of illegal
drug sales, have evolved into a cycle of revenge attacks now sweeping the city.
They believe the killing of a man on Christmas Day in the Stockholm suburb of
Rinkeby may have triggered subsequent attacks in the city’s south.
Kristersson
acknowledged the challenge facing police in comments to local outlet TV4 posted
by his Moderate Party on social media last week and underscored his commitment
to act. Europe-wide statistics are scarce for shootings and gang-related
violence, but what research there is suggests Sweden has among the highest
rates of gun homicides in the EU.
A
comparative study by Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention released in
2021 showed that while gun homicide rates in many other European countries
examined had fallen over recent years, rates had risen in Sweden, something the
authors suggested could be attributed to “the emergence of a new group dynamic
within the criminal milieu whereby shootings have come to precipitate one
another.”
“We have an
extensive program to deal with this, but I understand that people are
impatient,” the prime minister said. “These people who shoot each other on the
street aren’t going to stop because we tell them to; they need to be locked
up.”
The
escalation of Sweden’s domestic security crisis comes at a testing time for
Kristersson, just as his government is beginning its six-month presidency of
the Council of the EU and is seeking to raise its sights to international
challenges. On January 3, as glaziers were repairing the blown-out windows of
the apartment block in Grimsta, Kristersson was meeting with French President
Emmanuel Macron in Paris to discuss the EU’s response to Russia’s war on
Ukraine, energy security, spiking inflation and economic competitiveness.
“We have an
extensive program to deal with this, but I understand that people are
impatient,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said | TT News Agency by Henrik
Montgomery/AFP via Getty images
‘We failed you’
At the
scene of the murder in Vällingby, mourners had left candles and notes, some
calling for more action closer to home.
One
anonymous note said the man who had died there had been let down by his fellow
citizens. “We failed you as a society,” the note said.
On December
20, the heads of the three governing parties plus far-right Sweden Democrats
leader Jimmie Åkesson presented a series of proposed policy changes to turn the
tide of violence. One idea is to allow police to establish temporary zones where
they can carry out searches for guns and explosives even when they don’t
suspect wrongdoing. The belief is that such interventions, if well deployed,
can prevent future crime.
Also,
authorities believe the use of anonymous witnesses during trials, something
currently not allowed, might help secure more convictions.
Both ideas
are now under review while their likely effectiveness and impact on citizens’
existing rights are assessed.
In the
meantime, the government is talking up its anti-gangs agenda, calling it “the
biggest offensive in Swedish history against organized crime,” leading some
commentators to suggest that Kristersson is over-promising on a high-profile
initiative even as there are signs that voters already are losing faith in his
ability to deliver on campaign pledges.
The most
recent survey by the pollster Novus, published this month, showed support for
the opposition Social Democrats is rising, while support for Kristersson and
his backers in parliament is ebbing. Meanwhile, a mid-December survey of voters
by Demoskop showed 62 percent of respondents said the new government was doing
a poor job.
Domestic discontent
There have
also been examples of divisions between the government and the far-right SD
over criminal justice.
After 11
men were recently cleared by a Swedish court of charges of violent rioting, SD
lawmaker Richard Jomshof, who chairs the parliament’s justice committee, called
the ruling “a joke.” Moderate Party member and Justice Secretary Gunnar
Strömmer criticized the statement, saying lawmakers “shouldn’t comment on
individual cases.”
As
Kristersson prepares to welcome the European Commission to a gathering in the
Arctic town of Kiruna this Thursday, he will need to keep his eye on bubbling
domestic discontent over gang violence.
While he
will likely seek to show off Sweden’s best side — the media handbook for the
Kiruna meeting mentions northern lights, Sami culture and a space research base
— the country’s dark side in the form of street violence spreading across the
suburbs of Stockholm shows little sign of fading.
At a
makeshift memorial at the restaurant in Vällingby last week on Tuesday, three
women passing by stopped to read the messages from mourners.
“Think of
the parents, what they must be going through,” one woman said to another. “When
will this ever stop?”
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