After the violent summer, a large number of young people were arrested by the police and then arrested by the court. In June and July alone, 75 young people between 15 and 17 years of age were arrested.
Usually young people are detained only for very serious crimes and it is about suspicions related to murder, attempted murder, explosion, serious armed crimes and the like.
Two of them are a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl who were detained at the end of July for shooting in Södertälje. Another is a 15-year-old boy who was arrested for aiding and abetting the murder of a teenage boy in Bagarmossen in Stockholm earlier in July.
Teenagers have gotten in more and more to illegal firearms and were drawn to gang-based violence, notes Sven Granath, a criminologist at the Stockholm police.
The police have also been successful in arresting more people after acts of violence, and in addition the judiciary are more likely to detain young suspects rather than letting them be taken care of by social services. to give them, he said.
– Even if the group with risk factors does not get that either, it is indeed very bad that young people are drawn into this serious crime, says Granath.
Are there unusually many “child soldiers” being recruited now?
– Yes, this is a sign of that. And above all, that the communication between the slightly older gang criminals, who start and lead projects, and the younger ones has increased through social media and technology new contact.
Older people may also see even more risks from committing acts of violence, he believes.
– What remains is the youngest youth who cannot see the consequences, and who cannot offer much else to organized crime except to commit violence and store weapons.
On average, 83 young children sat arrested in July. In May and June there were more than 100.
– As an authority, we do not have long experience in handling such high numbers of young people who are deprived of their freedom, so it is a challenge. But we have learned to find ways of working, says correctional inspector Aso Cåzade.
Young children have a legal right to four hours of daily contact with other people. It can be different types of activities with employees, such as being in the gym, playing cards, baking, watching movies together or chatting regularly.
At the same time, the detention centers are currently very full and there is a shortage of places from time to time.
– We must make sure that children who are suspected in the same case are not in the same department. When it comes to measures to break isolation, we cannot move a prisoner to any room in terms of hearing and many doors, says Aso Cåzade.
Read more: Record number of young detainees – isolation in overcrowded detention centres
2024-08-16 04:38:30
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