Sweden is in the grip of a rise in gang violence and shootings that has taken citizens and leaders by surprise. In the words of the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, this year: “Sweden has never before seen anything like this. No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this.” Since 2013 the number of fatal shootings in the country has more than doubled, according to official statistics, and drug and gun crimes have steadily increased since the beginning of the 2000s. Kristersson’s remark about Europe was not wrong: the country is now among the continent’s worst when it comes to gun murders. Much of the violence has taken place in the larger cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala. The gun-murder rate in the Swedish capital was roughly 30 times that of London on a per capita basis in 2022. However, the unrest has spread to smaller cities. Prominent members of the far-right Sweden Democrats, now the second-largest grouping in Sweden’s parliament (their support allowed the current centre-right government to take power in the 2022 election), have been quick to point the finger at migration. However, the data shows a more complex picture, with the social fortunes of those living in areas most affected by crime falling behind the living standards of much of the rest of Sweden. Sweden now has one of the highest gun death rates per capita of any European country for which there are figures, according to the most recent data from the United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC). In recent years, the country has overtaken Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia in terms of deaths per 100,000 population. It is now second only to Albania when compared with other European countries with populations of at least one million, having been in 14th place in 2010. Poverty is the main driver of crime in violence hotspots The Swedish police have identified a number of “utsatta”, or vulnerable areas, across the country. These are home to just 5% of the country’s population, but are connected with the most serious violence. While these areas do have high proportions of residents born outside Europe and second- and third-generation immigrants, they have been shaped by socioeconomic circumstances over a long period of time, a factor which experts say is of far greater significance to the current situation. More than 80% of the underlying statistical areas that make up these “utsatta” are defined as having socioeconomic challenges, with half of them classed as having “major” challenges. Long-term unemployment rates are above average in the majority of these areas and is increasing. Meanwhile, the proportion of people at risk of poverty – defined as an economic standard of less than 60% of the median – is more than twice the national figure. “Socioeconomic factors are what mostly constitute the risks of ending up in crime,” not ethnicity, says Felipe Estrada Dörner, a professor of criminology at Stockholm University whose research centres on juvenile delinquency and segregation. “This is a classic and well known pattern, in Sweden and internationally.” While some statistics are going in the right direction – for example, the percentage of young people not in education or work has decreased over the last 10 years in a majority of the areas designated vulnerable – more needs to be done. Estrada Dörner says accelerating this trend and reversing other aspects of socioeconomic decline should be prioritised. “In order to slow down the supply of new recruits to gangs, inequality must be reduced. Harsher punishments, which the government invests a lot of resources in now, will not overcome those problems.” The income gap in Sweden has increased in recent decades: according to the latest statistics, income has not been this unevenly divided for more than 40 years. This gap has contributed to the country’s current situation, says Estrada Dörner. “The increased inequality in income, health and education over the last decades leads to the fact that the life chances of children and young people from different areas will differ more and more,” he said. Rise in gun crime accompanied by rise in narcotics offences “Perhaps the most important conflicts in organised crime in Sweden are about the narcotics trade: about who is selling where and what,” Ardavan Khoshnood, a criminologist and associate professor at Lund University, explains. He points to the simultaneous rise in gun crime, bombings and narcotics crimes. Nearly a third of suspects in gang-related crimes aged 15 to 20 Young people and children are increasingly being recruited by gangs, authorities say. Data shows the suspects in crimes connected to gang violence, including manslaughter, murder and deadly assault, are getting younger. In 2012, 15- to 20-year-olds made up 16.9% of all suspects for such crimes; by 2022 that figure stood at 29.7%. The same trend is even starker when it comes to gun crime: less than a quarter (23.6%) of suspects in gun-related murder and manslaughter offences were aged between 15 and 20 a decade ago; in 2022 it was closer to half (45.1%), according to data from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. This trend cannot be explained by a wider trend towards criminality among young people. Since 2013, the number of people in the 15 to 20 age group suspected of crime in general has not changed much and has actually decreased since 2020. “From a criminological perspective, one would think … that the trend is the same for all youth crime. But it doesn’t really look like that,” Estrada Dörner said, adding that this was a sign of “fewer but worse”.