Crime and criminology in Sweden
| Author | David Shannon,Tove Pettersson,Felipe Estrada |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370812459823 |
| Published date | 01 November 2012 |
| Date | 01 November 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Country Survey |
European Journal of Criminology
9(6) 668 –688
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370812459823
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Crime and criminology in
Sweden
Felipe Estrada and Tove Pettersson
Stockholm University, Sweden
David Shannon
Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden
Background
Sweden is a sparsely populated country of 9 million people, geographically located on
the margins of the European Union (EU). Approximately one-third of the population
lives in the three metropolitan areas of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö, and around 14
percent of Sweden’s population are born overseas. Sweden is often described, together
with Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, as a welfare country characterized by low
levels of income inequality (Lappi-Seppälä and Tonry, 2011). Prior to an election defeat
in 1976, the Social Democrats had been in government since 1933, and Sweden had
constructed what has been referred to as a welfare state par excellence (Tham, 1995).
Although the Social Democrats quickly regained power, and governed until 2006 (with
the exception of the period 1991–4), the Swedish political climate was influenced from
the 1980s onwards by the international shift towards neoliberal ideas. The Social
Democrats introduced changes to welfare policy, including, notably, gradually deregulat-
ing the economy. Today Sweden has a centre-right coalition government led by the con-
servative New Moderates. The consistent post-war ‘party of government’, the Social
Democrats, is facing a serious challenge in the area of agenda-setting, and Sweden has
become less different from the rest of Western Europe.
Criminologists have also often described the Scandinavian countries as distinct from
the rest of Europe, being characterized by low prison populations, knowledge-based
crime policy and an absence of punitivity in the public debate (Lappi-Seppälä and Tonry,
2011). In his description of ‘“Scandinavian exceptionalism” in an era of penal excess’,
however, Pratt (2008) sees dark clouds on the Swedish horizon. In the early 1990s,
Sweden suffered an economic crisis that tripled the unemployment rate (from around 3
to 9 percent) and produced major welfare policy cutbacks. Effects on living conditions
Corresponding author:
Felipe Estrada, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden.
Email: felipe.estrada@criminology.su.se
459823EUC9610.1177/1477370812459823European Journal of CriminologyEstrada et al.
2012
Country survey
Estrada et al. 669
were particularly negative for society’s most disadvantaged groups (youths, single par-
ents and immigrants). The recession intensified differences in both living conditions and
experiences of crime (Nilsson and Estrada, 2006). Unemployment, particularly among
young people and those with an immigrant background, today remains at significantly
higher levels than prior to the 1990s. Income differentials have also increased, a trend
that began at the start of the 1980s but has been accentuated over recent years. The level
of residential segregation has also been rising, with those on high and low incomes
increasingly living apart from one another. There is thus a general tendency towards
greater social inequality (Fritzell et al., 2011).
In the 2010 general election, a further form of ‘Swedish exceptionalism’ disappeared,
as the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in openly xenophobic, right-wing extremist
politics, entered parliament. Like similar political groupings in many European coun-
tries, the party has a major focus on crime, punishment and migration (Rydgren, 2007).
Crime, particularly violence, is depicted as increasing sharply, and sanctioning practices
are described as inadequate. The Sweden Democrats are not, however, alone in this
description of the Swedish crime problem. Besides the fact that large segments of the
population perceive crime to be increasing and sanctions to be too lenient (Jerre and
Tham, 2010), such views are also disseminated by the traditional parties of both the right
and the left (Tham, 2001).
Criminological research in Sweden
In his review of quantitative criminological research in Sweden up until the mid-1990s,
Wikström (1996) distinguished a number of fields that constituted a focus at the time:
longitudinal studies of individual criminal development, crime trends, ecological studies
of urban crime, crime prevention and responses to crime. Swedish criminology has
grown to be a much broader field since then. There is now a significantly larger number
of centres of research and teaching in the country. Swedish research has also developed
a significantly wider methodological base, and qualitative studies have become com-
mon, although the strong quantitative tradition has also continued.
The three centres of criminological research with the longest traditions are the
Department of Criminology at Stockholm University, the Department of Sociology at
Göteborg University, and the Network for Research in Criminology and Deviant
Behaviour at Lund University. Over recent years, however, an increasing number of
universities and colleges have become involved in criminological research and teaching.
Outside the educational sector, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention also
has a strong criminological research tradition.
University research
With a total of approximately 30 researchers and research students, Stockholm
University’s Department of Criminology is the largest Swedish university department for
criminological research and teaching. Its research has a broad focus both methodologi-
cally and in its subject matter. Key areas of research have included the crime structure
(for example, Sarnecki, 2001; von Hofer, 2011), crime policy (Flyghed, 2003; Hörnqvist,
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