Crime prevention in Sweden

As in recent years, crime prevention in Sweden has focused on the Municipal Responsibility for Crime Prevention Act (Lagen om kommuners ansvar för brottsförebyggande arbete, 2023:196) and on the Swedish Police Authority Strategy for Crime Prevention1 . For that reason, this report emphasises these policy documents, as well as describing other crime prevention trends of 2024. This year’s report also places particular emphasis on coordination and collaboration in crime prevention.

Local crime prevention

preventionThe conditions for local crime prevention have become increasingly established across the country. Act 2023:196 is deemed to have a strong impact, and many local police districts have implemented the Police Crime Prevention Strategy. The number of respondents involved with crime prevention in the police or municipalities who report being able to devote more than half of their working hours to these issues has increased. More municipalities than ever before are also conducting need analysis and analyses of local crime, and although fewer municipalities had completed action plans than in previous years, many reported that they were currently working on action plans.

Although crime prevention within municipalities and the police has been strengthened in many respects, the challenges of conducting causation analyses and designing measures to address problems related to local crime persist. For example, the survey shows that measures are being taken to address problems not identified in the local situational picture.

According to municipal crime prevention coordinators and municipal police officers, one of the most important prerequisites for crime prevention is clear leadership and management in crime prevention. In some places, Act 2023:196 and the Police Crime Prevention Strategy are reported to have led local managers to prioritise crime prevention more than before. However, even more respondents describe a lack of leadership and governance as a major challenge. Lack of prioritisation and lack of understanding of crime prevention at management level leads, among other things, to under-resourcing of the work. This makes the long-term dimension of crime prevention more difficult.

Coordination and collaboration

Municipal crime prevention coordinators and municipality police officers emphasise that collaboration between municipalities and police is a success factor. Collaboration between the parties is often perceived as working well and has in many places improved. In some cases, however, it must be made clear that crime prevention is the joint responsibility of police and municipalities, rather than the sole responsibility of one or the other. Municipal collaboration with other external stakeholders is also relatively widespread, but rarely formalised. This applies, for example, to collaboration with civil society and the business community. According to interview subjects who are engaged in crime prevention, the focus of such coordination and collaboration is on internal crime prevention. Many are working to create and develop effective structures for collaboration and coordination among municipal organisations.

Regional crime prevention

The regional support provided by the county administrative boards and the police to municipalities and local police districts over the past year has mainly focused on supporting the implementation of Act 2023:196 and the Police Crime Prevention Strategy. In addition, the public authorities have worked on establishing collaboration structures to counteract the involvement of children and young people in organised crime (“BOB”).

In several police regions, crime prevention coordinators have also been established at police district level. Support within police districts is more practice-oriented, compared to regional support. The county administrative boards, which have also developed practice-oriented support together with Brå, feel that such support is successful because it can be adapted to local needs.

The conditions for crime prevention by regional coordinators have improved over time, but their duties have simultaneously been expanded. In order for regional support to continue to develop at the same pace as local crime prevention, regional coordinators find they need more resources as their duties expand as well as more knowledge of, for example, statistics and effective methods. They also emphasise that national support for crime prevention must be coordinated and adapted to regional and local needs.

National crime prevention

The increasing ambition of crime prevention in recent years has continued in 2024. Among other things, three new strategies and a new action programme2 related to crime prevention have been presented, and the pace of reform on other initiatives is high. In particular, initiatives have been taken to fight organised crime. The Government has issued assignments to counter criminal economies, the involvement of children and young people in criminal networks, and recidivism, and to strengthen protection for particularly vulnerable groups. The initiative to strengthen collaboration on children and young people at risk of committing or committing serious offences is particularly clear.

A growing number of authorities are working proactively with clearer roles and responsibilities in the area of national crime prevention. This in turn requires collaboration among authorities. There is a need to find new forms of collaboration and to strengthen existing networks. Brå has a central role in coordinating the national authorities and supporting them with knowledge about crime prevention.

Brå’s development work

Brå’s role as a coordinator and driver of developments in crime prevention has grown. An increasing number of local, regional and national crime-prevention stakeholders are turning to Brå for support and advice. Local stakeholders state that many aspects of their work benefit from this support. At the same time, effectively using its existing resources to meet and address new expectations and assignments, while also managing existing operations, is a challenge for Brå.

Brå works to provide both direct and indirect support for crime prevention. Brå provides direct support to those engaged in crime prevention at local, regional and national level. This involves, for example, the needs-based, practice-oriented support that Brå provides to local stakeholders, but also the development and dissemination of knowledge and information necessary to conduct evidence-based work at all levels. Brå also works more indirectly to provide support by building a knowledge base on crime prevention that is then used when designing Brå’s direct support. This knowledge base is continuously expanded through Brå’s follow-ups, evaluations, statistical production and external monitoring.

In response to the needs for support that were expressed by those engaged in crime prevention at the local level in past annual follow-ups, Brå worked with those engaged in crime prevention at the local, regional and national levels to develop several supports during 2024. For example, Brå’s online training programmes have been expanded to focus on municipal decision-makers and on working with children and young people in criminal environments. Brå has also revised the handbook Collaboration in Local Crime Prevention (‘Samverkan i lokalt brottsförebyggande arbete’), together with the Police Authority, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, SKR) and the county administrative boards. In addition, the same group has commenced work on developing support for the selection of measures in local crime prevention. Brå has also provided practice-oriented support to more than 50 municipalities together with the county administrative boards.

Brå’s conclusions on crime prevention in Sweden

The entry into force of Act 2023:19, adoption of the Police Crime Prevention Strategy and the numerous other national initiatives taken in this area in recent years show that Swedish crime prevention is being enhanced. The new policy documents also seem to have an impact on crime prevention at local level. In many places, crime prevention is increasingly prioritised, conditions have improved, and local crime prevention is evidence-based in more municipalities than ever before.

Act 2023:19, the Police Crime Prevention Strategy and the other new initiatives also mean that more people are involved in crime prevention than before. Many departments and functions within municipalities and local police districts that were not previously involved in crime prevention are now involved. Similarly, more national authorities than before are expected to contribute to crime prevention. This places increased demands on coordination at all levels, and it is therefore necessary to ensure that coordinators at local, regional and national level have sufficient resources to perform new duties and meet increased expectations. This is particularly important because implementation of Act 2023:19 and the Police Crime Prevention Strategy is still ongoing. Brå wishes to emphasise the importance of giving municipalities, the police and national authorities room to proceed ‘with all a speed’ in their development work.

Although crime prevention has developed in many places and in numerous ways, many municipalities and local police districts still need time to implement an evidence-based approach. For example, many municipalities presently do not adopt measures based on the local situational picture, and work with root cause analyses reportedly remains challenging and time-consuming. Municipalities and local police districts must also develop collaboration with civil society, the business community and regions in crime prevention. In some places, collaboration between municipalities and police must also be improved, and in this context Brå would like to emphasise that responsibility for local crime prevention is shared between both stakeholders. Act 2023:196 has given municipalities a clearer role as the driving force behind crime prevention in the geographical area, but the responsibility of police for crime prevention has in no way lessened.