SWEDEN

DOMESTIC
New report: Immigrants behind most youth violence
Published 2024-07-30
It is immigrants who are behind most cases of abuse among young people in Sweden. This is stated by the Crime Prevention Council (Brå) in a new report.

Six out of ten perpetrators between the ages of 15 and 17, who between 2018 and 2022 were suspected of assault, were either born abroad or had two foreign-born parents, Brå states.

At the same time, the same youth group made up only 20 percent of the population. This means that young people with a foreign background are "strongly overrepresented among young people who are suspected of assault", reads the Brå report.

Increasing violence
It is mainly boys who both commit and are subjected to abuse, but violence perpetrated by girls is described as "a new problem area". For example, the percentage of robberies committed by girls doubled between 2015 and 2019.

Youth violence decreased in the 2010s compared to the previous decade, but has increased again in the 2020s. So far, however, the level is said to be lower than a couple of decades ago.

On the other hand, there are indications of an increasing number of robberies, and that more violence is used in such robberies than before.

The Brå report is a so-called brief analysis that aims to provide a "descriptive overall picture of assault crimes among young people based on existing data sources". Among other things, Brå has used surveys and crime statistics to compile its figures.