European Central: Swedish Army To help Combat Surge In Gang Violence
paula sierra
Conservatives in Sweden won the last election partly based on the platform that they would make Sweden safer again. Crime has continued to escalate instead, making it clear this is a difficult issue to tackle in Sweden. In September alone, 12 people died in Sweden as a result of gang violence. In order to reduce crime, the Swedish military will aid police in combatting gang violence. New legislation will also grant more powers to Swedish police including the ability to conduct body searches and use wiretapping to combat gang violence in certain areas of the nation.
It is estimated that currently 30,000 people in Sweden are either personally involved with or have connections to gangs. Besides wanting to prevent the number of people dying from increasing this decision is also likely motivated by the fact that innocent bystanders are dying in attacks. One example is a woman in her twenties dying as a result of a bombing in Uppsala. Another includes a young male being shot near a football field which led 60 children to run for cover. As of a week ago, there were 134 bombs since January 2023, more than the 90 bombings that occurred last year. This helps explain why the military has been called to assist as gang violence worsens, putting innocent people at risk.
The problem of bombings is particularly important as when gangs use bombs to attack the houses of other gang members, they are not just attacking the gang members. In 2019, only 9.5 percent of Swedes lived in detached homes while the rest resided in flats or semidetached homes according to Eurostat. This means that 90.5 percent of Swedes are potentially vulnerable to a bombing if their neighbors participate in gang activities. Images online show apartment walls destroyed as a result of bombings targeting gang members only located in one apartment, yet their neighbors suffer from the attack as well.
Challenges to Integrating Immigrants
The current Swedish government blames the nation’s immigration policy and a lack of efforts to integrate migrants that moved to the nation. Besides Sweden, other European Union member states have become skeptical of allowing massive immigration to their nations, and political parties against immigration have seen a surge in support in polls. In Germany, AFD has become the second most popular party behind the Christian Democrats. According to Politico, AFD is polling at 22 percent in polls while it only polled at 10 percent in the last national election.
Prime Minister Kristersson has made it clear that while Swedish citizens participating in gang activity will be imprisoned, immigrants involved in gang activity will be deported. What is unclear is if deportation will be truly possible for all immigrants as several EU member states have struggled with repatriating people who came without a visa and do not qualify for asylum status. This is a result of EU nations not having an agreement with some nations and some immigrants, may not be able to be repatriated if their home nations are unsafe unless they are able to be deported to a third nation that they traveled through in order to arrive to Sweden.
One positive statement from Prime Minister Kristersson is that efforts will be made to help every immigrant child learn Swedish. While adults should receive assistance as well with learning Swedish, it is important to focus on children due to it being easier for children to learn languages. According to Dr. Eleonore Smalle, a post-doctoral researcher at Ghent University, children have an easier time learning languages than adults due to the conscious memory system developing when a person is 12 years old. Children have the capability to learn language rules unconsciously while adults try to focus on learning the rules which may actually make these rules harder to remember. One potential solution to help adults is learning a language in an immersive learning environment, which is exactly what learning Swedish in Sweden would be for immigrants.
No-Go Zones
No-go zones have been a controversial term in Europe used to classify areas that have a high percentage of immigrant residents and crime. The term refers to the belief of some people that due to becoming so unsafe, Europeans of their respective nations are no longer able to freely travel in these areas without endangering themselves. In Sweden, the official term used by authorities is vulnerable areas. Some experts argue these areas do not truly exist, and this argument appears based on the fear that the crime of a few will lead to widespread hatred and discrimination of immigrants, particularly Muslims.
In Husby, a vulnerable zone northwest of Stockholm, Swedish residents have started to participate in vigilante justice due to feeling that the proper authorities have ignored crime in the suburb. Syringes are scattered across the streets of Husby and drug addicts who are homeless break into people’s homes to sleep in basements and storage rooms. Swedish residents of Husby have started to beat criminals who disregard the law. A few weeks later, the number of addicts dramatically decreased in the suburb. The suburb in 2017 planned to use feminist urban planning to help tackle the violence to make the suburb safe for women including the installation of more streetlights, yet nothing became of this. Private security was also going to be hired to protect businesses yet no private security firm was willing to accept the contract.
Conclusion
There is no instant solution to solve gang violence in Sweden. The longer it persists in Sweden and throughout the European Union, the longer it can be expected that voters will increasingly support parties that are anti-immigration. It is important however that the government swiftly responds to the violence to also prevent immigrants from being broadly targeted by ethnic Swedes who may attempt to punish immigrants for the surge in gang violence. To spell out the obvious, not every immigrant is connected to gang violence and should not be treated as if they were. A slow government response to gang crime however will continue to fuel anti-immigration sentiments in Sweden and throughout Europe.
