The Swedish system tries to rehabilitate prisoners using various evidence-based methods. For some types of prisoners it works very well.
Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all on buying cigarettes.
The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower. This seems to be good for both criminal and society. Prisoners know they will have a life again after prison so they want to rehabilitate and prepare.
However, the last 10 years of very high immigration from the muslim countres of middle east and north africa is rapidly filling Swedish prisons. The chief of Kumla maximum security facility was recently in the news saying that 80% of his prison are muslim. Politicians don't want to touch the subject out of fears of being branded racist, but it's vividly discussed on the net in forums such as flashback.net
Wow, thanks for the insight. I didn't realize things had changed so drastically in Sweden in the past decade.
So just statistically speaking, has the overall crime rate gone up drastically in Sweden throughout the past decade or is it more of a slight bump? Just wondering if it has gone up enough that the average person notices in their daily lives or if it's more of a news report/sound bite for politicians? I'm not an expert by any means on Sweden, but I always thought of it as having a progressive legal system and low crime rate.
Statistics are complicated and there's no simple truth, but the number of reported crimes have risen dramatically since the 1950s (when immigration started). [1]
As soon as you start discussion why there is an increase you're holding a very hot potato.
For example, if you look at the armed robberies in 1987 and compare with 2011, the number of armed robberies by Swedish citizens are constant, but the number of armed robberies in Sweden by foreign citizens have quadrupled in absolute terms, or relatively speaking, the percentage of armed robberies have gone from 40% to 70% foreign citizens.
From 1975 to 2006, violent crime is up 200%
Some say Sweden's crime rate is out of control [4]
Mind you, I still perceive Sweden as a land with a low crime rate. It seems international crime statistics are very hard to compare. For intentional homicides, the rate in 1997 was 1.77 for Sweden, 0.54 for Japan, and 6.80 for USA. For major assaults, the rate in 1997 was 37.93 for Sweden, compared with 20.91 for Japan, and 382.31 for USA. For rapes, the rate in 1997 was 14.71 for Sweden, 1.31 for Japan, and 35.93 for USA. For robberies, the rate in 1997 was 75.04 for Sweden, 2.23 for Japan, and 186.27 for USA. [5]
Immigration of large numbers of poor, unassimilated people is a problem, as much as European countries are loathe to admit it. I don't have evidence to prove it, but my hypothesis is that much of what makes the scandenavian countries work historically is a homogenous population with a strong sense of community.
Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all on buying cigarettes.
The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower. This seems to be good for both criminal and society. Prisoners know they will have a life again after prison so they want to rehabilitate and prepare.
However, the last 10 years of very high immigration from the muslim countres of middle east and north africa is rapidly filling Swedish prisons. The chief of Kumla maximum security facility was recently in the news saying that 80% of his prison are muslim. Politicians don't want to touch the subject out of fears of being branded racist, but it's vividly discussed on the net in forums such as flashback.net