Lisa Magnusson: The prisons flood – but by which ones?

To count sticks. So you usually call it when the police, for example, stand at the roadside and prosecute traffic offenses. It is simple, and gives good statistics with many « cleared crimes ». But it is not particularly productive: five speeds are not more than four order murders.

Nevertheless, this stick count mentality seems to have come to characterize the work on the most serious crime.

It is of course easier To put the people in the lowest in the hierarchy. They are often young, sometimes children, and attracted, tricked and threatened to carry off crime for the criminal gangs. This applies to everything from running small cases to regular blasts and deaths.

A record number of minors are now locked up. The Children’s Ombudsman Juno Blom stated the other day that the situation for them is bad (DN 28/3). That they rarely receive the support they need.

In many of the homes, people with their own link to criminal networks, who thus more or less have free access to their foremost target group of recruits: lost children and young people.

90 percent of those who are sentenced to closed youth care return to crime within three and a half years, according to the National Audit Office’s statistics.

And on the adult side, the prison places are no longer enough.

“We have a total Extension of 140 percent, ”states the Prison and Probation Service’s security director, Kenneth Holm (SVT 24/3). Often, the inmates are allowed to share the cell, which is bad for both rehabilitation and calm. Threats and violence have increased sharply.

Yes, the institutions flood – but by which ones?

The adult world must begin to take responsibility for the children and young people who are exploited by the gang. Help them loose.

Now Chamber Prosecutor Mats Ihlbom sounds an alarm that the investigations are losing the speed as soon as the performers themselves have been arrested. Just when the most difficult and most important part is to take on, that is, to put the client in, resources disappear and prioritize to other investigations.

So the gang leaders are free – recently Mats Ihlbom was forced to release « one of the worst violent workers we have seen in modern times » (SVT 1/4).

It’s inconceivable.

Countless times have it It has been pointed out that the situation with gang crime is serious, on the verge of system threatening. The adult world must begin to take responsibility for the children and young people who are exploited by the gang. Help them loose. Make sure they are allowed to go to school. Give them their future back. At the same time, resources must be spent on putting the really serious criminals behind locks and booms.

Stopping the availability of criminal labor and catching those who demand it – it is such a comprehensive task that it as soon as possible requires a system change. But with less we never get out of this.

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