Sweden is already negotiating with other countries to rent cells in their prisons.
A commission appointed by the Swedish government on Wednesday, January 29, said the country could send criminals to serve their sentences in prisons abroad. This conclusion was voiced against the backdrop of the problem of prison overcrowding, which arose due to a surge in organized crime and the great efforts of law enforcement agencies to contain it.
Reuters writes about this.
“We need to work on new solutions within the Prison and Probation Service,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said at a press conference.
He noted that Sweden is already negotiating with other countries about renting cells in their prisons.
The publication notes that over the past 20 years, the number of organized crime gangs in Sweden has been rapidly growing. The Scandinavian country has the highest per capita rate of fatal gun violence in Europe.
By changing laws and increasing staff and funding, Swedish police have made strides in combating gangs, with fatal shootings down and convictions up over the past two years.
But that success has put an enormous strain on the prison system. In 2023, Swedish courts handed down just under 200,000 months of prison sentences. This is 25% more than in 2022 and double the 2014 level.
Prisons and detention centres in Sweden are overcrowded, and the Prison and Probation Service says it will need around 27,000 beds by 2033, compared to just 11,000 in Swedish prisons today.
Commission head Mattias Wahlstedt said there are no legal obstacles to Sweden renting prison space abroad, but the proposal must first be approved by parliament.
Recall that in Russia, violence is being recorded among “veterans” of the war in Ukraine. In 2023, the number of violent crimes committed by occupiers upon returning home increased 13-fold.
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