Sweden’s prime minister on Thursday said that he’s summoned the head of the military to discuss how the armed forces can help police deal with an unprecedented crime wave that has shocked the country with almost daily shootings and bombings.
Getting the military involved in crime-fighting would be a highly unusual step for Sweden, underscoring the severity of the gang violence that has claimed a dozen lives across the country this month, including teenagers and innocent bystanders.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that he would meet with the armed forces’ supreme commander and the national police commissioner on Friday to explore “how the armed forces can help police in their work against the criminal gangs.”
I agree that the current government is implementing exactly 0 long-term strategies to help deal with the root cause of the problems, like strengthening and financing social services and welfare, healthcare and mental healthcare, schools and social programs, decriminalizing some drugs etc, to curb influx of underage criminals into the gangs and remove some of the economical incentives. The opposition is coming out with good suggestion after good suggestion, and the right-wing (by Swedish standards) government has basically just slashed welfare across the board in practice. They are going for only the hard-on-crime approach, which as far as I know has no real scientific proof of long-term efficacy unless paired with social/community interventions.
However, I think many swedes agree that the police need more resources - particularly people watching possible targets of future bombings and just more eyes on the gangs. We have one of the lowest number of police per capita in Europe, slightly higher than the rest of the Nordic countries tbf, but with much bigger problems with organized crime and violence.
I’m also horrified at this general societal development, but I can see the merit of involving some of the military in more eyes-on-the-ground kinds of operations for a few years until we have more of a grip on the gang situation. I prefer that to visitation zones, harsher punishments and more generalized surveillance of non-suspects being allowed.
But maybe I’m just naïve to the implications.