this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
228 points (97.9% liked)

World News

39175 readers
4048 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Sweden’s prime minister on Thursday said that he’s summoned the head of the military to discuss how the armed forces can help police deal with an unprecedented crime wave that has shocked the country with almost daily shootings and bombings.

Getting the military involved in crime-fighting would be a highly unusual step for Sweden, underscoring the severity of the gang violence that has claimed a dozen lives across the country this month, including teenagers and innocent bystanders.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that he would meet with the armed forces’ supreme commander and the national police commissioner on Friday to explore “how the armed forces can help police in their work against the criminal gangs.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I agree that the current government is implementing exactly 0 long-term strategies to help deal with the root cause of the problems, like strengthening and financing social services and welfare, healthcare and mental healthcare, schools and social programs, decriminalizing some drugs etc, to curb influx of underage criminals into the gangs and remove some of the economical incentives. The opposition is coming out with good suggestion after good suggestion, and the right-wing (by Swedish standards) government has basically just slashed welfare across the board in practice. They are going for only the hard-on-crime approach, which as far as I know has no real scientific proof of long-term efficacy unless paired with social/community interventions.

However, I think many swedes agree that the police need more resources - particularly people watching possible targets of future bombings and just more eyes on the gangs. We have one of the lowest number of police per capita in Europe, slightly higher than the rest of the Nordic countries tbf, but with much bigger problems with organized crime and violence.

I'm also horrified at this general societal development, but I can see the merit of involving some of the military in more eyes-on-the-ground kinds of operations for a few years until we have more of a grip on the gang situation. I prefer that to visitation zones, harsher punishments and more generalized surveillance of non-suspects being allowed.

But maybe I'm just naïve to the implications.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don't really disagree fundamentally with any of this apart from the fact that I don't think involving the military at this point is anywhere near warranted. We'll have to see what happens I guess, I think it could be mostly saber rattling. "Look how seriously we're taking this!".

But more police, and specifically more police on tasks that actually matter and aren't just being pursued to pad their stats? That's fine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, agreed, some of it is probably just bluster to seem like they're doing something.

However, even if we agree that more police resources are necessary, I don't know how we should get more of competent, educated police in the short term unless we involve military (who do have some education at least). The last thing I want is for us to rapidly employ new "police" (ordningsvakter) with only weeks or a few months of training - that's how we get additional problems with US-style police violence on top of the gang violence problems...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Agreed. There are not really any good options here.