Crime and criminology in Sweden

Abstract

BackgroundSweden is a sparsely populated country of nine million people, geographically located on the margins of the EU.Approximately one-third of the population lives in the three metropolitan areas of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö, and around fourteen percent of Sweden's population are born overseas.Sweden is often described, together with Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, as a welfare country characterised by low levels of income inequality (Lappi-Seppälä & Tonry 2011).Prior to an election defeat in 1976, the Social Democrats had been in government since 1933, and Sweden had constructed what has been referred to as a welfare state par excellence (Tham 1995).Although the Social Democrats quickly regained power, and governed until 2006 (with the exception of the period 1991-1994), the Swedish political climate was influenced from the 1980s onwards by the international shift towards neoliberal ideas.The Social Democrats introduced changes to welfare policy, including, notably, gradually deregulating the economy.Today Sweden has a centre-right coalition government led by the conservative New Moderates.The consistent post-war 'party of government', the Social Democrats, are facing a serious challenge in the area of agenda-setting, and Sweden has become less different from the rest of western Europe.Criminologists have also often described the Scandinavian countries as distinct from the rest of Europe, being characterised by low prison populations, knowledge-based crime policy and an absence of punitivity in the public debate (Lappi-Seppälä & Tonry 2011).In his description of '"Scandinavian exceptionalism" in an era of penal excess ', however, Pratt (2008) sees dark clouds on the Swedish horizon.In the early 1990s, Sweden suffered an economic crisis that tripled the unemployment rate (from around three to nine percent) and produced major welfare-policy cutbacks.Effects on living conditions were particularly negative for society's most disadvantaged groups (youths, single parents and immigrants).The recession intensified differences in both living conditions and experiences of crime (Nilsson & Estrada 2006).Unemployment, particularly among young people and those with an immigrant background, today remains at significantly higher levels than prior to the 1990s.Income differentials have also increased, a trend which began at the start of the 1980s but has been accentuated over recent years.The level of residential segregation has also been rising, with those on high and low incomes increasingly living apart from one another.There is thus a general tendency towards greater social inequality (Fritzell, Bäckman and Ritakallio 2011).In the 2010 general election, a further form of 'Swedish exceptionalism' disappeared, as the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in openly xenophobic, right-wing extremist politics, entered Parliament.Like similar political groupings in many European countries, the party has a major focus on crime, punishment and migration (Rydgren 2007).Crime, and particularly violence, is depicted as increasing sharply, and sanctioning practices are described as inadequate.The Sweden Democrats are not, however, alone in this description of the Swedish crime problem.Besides the fact that large segments of the population perceive crime to be increasing and sanctions to be too lenient (Jerre & Tham 2010), such views are also disseminated by the traditional parties of both the right and the left (Tham 2001). Criminological research in SwedenIn his review of quantitative criminological research in Sweden up until the mid-1990s, Wikström (1996) distinguished a number of fields that constituted a focus at the time: longitudinal studies of individual criminal development, crime trends, ecological studies of urban crime, crime prevention and responses to crime.Swedish criminology has grown to be a much broader field since then.There is now a significantly larger number of centres of research and teaching in the country.Swedish research has also developed a significantly wider methodological base, and qualitative studies have become common, although the strong quantitative tradition has also continued.The three centres of criminological research with the longest traditions are the Department of Criminology at Stockholm University, the Department of Sociology at Göteborg University, and the Network for Research in Criminology and Deviant Behaviour at Lund University.Over recent years, however, an increasing number of universities and colleges have become involved in criminological research and teaching.Outside the educational sector, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention also has a strong criminological research tradition. University researchWith a total of approximately 30 researchers and research students, Stockholm University's Department of Criminology is the largest Swedish university department for criminological research and teaching.Its research has a broad focus both methodologically and in its subject matter.Key areas of research have included the crime structure (e.g.

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