**Surge in gun violence has become huge issue for voters as country goes to the polls**
Swedes have become all too familiar with gun violence. But the shooting of a mother and her child at a playground in central Sweden last week has provided an even more shocking and violent backdrop to the country’s parliamentary elections on September 11.
“It’s getting worse and worse in terms of violent crimes. It worries people,” said Torsten Elofsson, a former Malmö police chief who is now a candidate for the centre-right Christian Democrats.
“It used to be just Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö,” he continued, referring to Sweden’s three big cities. “Now you see it in small towns across Sweden. It’s getting closer and closer to where most people live.”
In the past decade, Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest per capita rates of deadly shootings in Europe to the highest, according to data from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. This year is on track to be a record for fatal shootings with a total of 44 deaths by mid-August, not far off the previous peak of 47 in 2020.
Law and order, once dismissed as a gang-on-gang phenomenon confined to the immigrant-heavy poor suburbs, is among the top priorities for Swedish voters, according to polling companies.
Nicholas Aylott, associate professor at Södertörn University, said he recently read of a 17-year-old shot dead near Stockholm, only to find out the victim was a friend of his son who had previously visited his home.
“It’s unbelievable, but in a way inevitable. It stops being something you read about in the papers and is something you experience. You couldn’t have a clearer symbol of how Sweden has changed,” he added.
Crime and the shootings have dominated both the electoral debate and the itineraries of party leaders.
A playground in Eskilstuna, a town of just over 100,000 people, has become the centre of focus after the shooting there shocked the nation. Swedish police believe the mother and her five-year-old, both injured in the attack, were caught up in the indiscriminate crossfire of an inter-gang dispute.
The child’s father told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper: “How can we live in a place where children risk being shot in a playground? There’s no safety any more.”
The governing Social Democrats, in power for the past eight years, have toughened their rhetoric on law and order and immigration in an attempt to head off fierce criticism from the rightwing opposition.
“This is an attack on all of society, and so all of society must defend itself,” Sweden’s centre-left prime minister Magdalena Andersson said during a visit to Eskilstuna this week.
>Elofsson said he saw the problem years ago as a police officer, looking at the names of those arrested and seeing immigrant names over-represented.
Yeah that’s something I feel some observers don’t get…I’ve heard people claim that all this started with the 2015 refugee crisis.
No, while it has been getting worse and worse over time it started a long time ago. My dad was a taxi driver in the Stockholm area in the 90s and he could see it then.
The worst offenders tend to be 2nd gen or mostly raised in Sweden, not new arrivals. Obvious question being how will the newer lot integrate if this stems from people who’ve been here a long time.
As an american I cant help but laugh, self righteous pricks always acted superior.
You got your own violent minority group in only a few years, and now it’s destabilized you from a peaceful, prosperous country to having to vote for right wingers.
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**Surge in gun violence has become huge issue for voters as country goes to the polls**
Swedes have become all too familiar with gun violence. But the shooting of a mother and her child at a playground in central Sweden last week has provided an even more shocking and violent backdrop to the country’s parliamentary elections on September 11.
“It’s getting worse and worse in terms of violent crimes. It worries people,” said Torsten Elofsson, a former Malmö police chief who is now a candidate for the centre-right Christian Democrats.
“It used to be just Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö,” he continued, referring to Sweden’s three big cities. “Now you see it in small towns across Sweden. It’s getting closer and closer to where most people live.”
In the past decade, Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest per capita rates of deadly shootings in Europe to the highest, according to data from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. This year is on track to be a record for fatal shootings with a total of 44 deaths by mid-August, not far off the previous peak of 47 in 2020.
Law and order, once dismissed as a gang-on-gang phenomenon confined to the immigrant-heavy poor suburbs, is among the top priorities for Swedish voters, according to polling companies.
Nicholas Aylott, associate professor at Södertörn University, said he recently read of a 17-year-old shot dead near Stockholm, only to find out the victim was a friend of his son who had previously visited his home.
“It’s unbelievable, but in a way inevitable. It stops being something you read about in the papers and is something you experience. You couldn’t have a clearer symbol of how Sweden has changed,” he added.
Crime and the shootings have dominated both the electoral debate and the itineraries of party leaders.
A playground in Eskilstuna, a town of just over 100,000 people, has become the centre of focus after the shooting there shocked the nation. Swedish police believe the mother and her five-year-old, both injured in the attack, were caught up in the indiscriminate crossfire of an inter-gang dispute.
The child’s father told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper: “How can we live in a place where children risk being shot in a playground? There’s no safety any more.”
The governing Social Democrats, in power for the past eight years, have toughened their rhetoric on law and order and immigration in an attempt to head off fierce criticism from the rightwing opposition.
“This is an attack on all of society, and so all of society must defend itself,” Sweden’s centre-left prime minister Magdalena Andersson said during a visit to Eskilstuna this week.
>Elofsson said he saw the problem years ago as a police officer, looking at the names of those arrested and seeing immigrant names over-represented.
Yeah that’s something I feel some observers don’t get…I’ve heard people claim that all this started with the 2015 refugee crisis.
No, while it has been getting worse and worse over time it started a long time ago. My dad was a taxi driver in the Stockholm area in the 90s and he could see it then.
The worst offenders tend to be 2nd gen or mostly raised in Sweden, not new arrivals. Obvious question being how will the newer lot integrate if this stems from people who’ve been here a long time.
As an american I cant help but laugh, self righteous pricks always acted superior.
You got your own violent minority group in only a few years, and now it’s destabilized you from a peaceful, prosperous country to having to vote for right wingers.