In the wake of the pandemic, the risk of increased crime and recruitment to criminal gangs is growing well into old age, according to an internal police analysis. With a corresponding forecast for migration and human trafficking, the political pressure on the police is expected to increase.
At the police's National Operations Department (NOA), an unpublished or recorded activity analysis for 2020 is currently circulating. SvD has read the document in its entirety.
In the Police Authority, National Police Chief Anders Thornberg has the same responsibility for internal security as ÖB Micael Bydén has for the external in the Armed Forces - it is Thornberg who will point out a way forward for Swedish police and formulate a long-term and sustainable strategic direction in concrete terms.
The current analysis has been prepared by NOA's external analysts and will form the basis for future work in that regard. A model is the Swedish Armed Forces' perspective study, which extends to 2035 in terms of time.
There is no corresponding planning at the police. The current strategy extends to 2024 and is based, among other things, on a previous government assignment "to report on how police operations are to be strengthened and developed". This includes increasing the total number of police employees from 30,000 to 40,000.
According to the operational analysis, the covid-19 pandemic and the escalation of serious violence have each made the work of the police more difficult: "Both processes have put the police staff under pressure with new dimensions."
The forecast is that vulnerable areas risk being hit harder by “an extensive and prolonged recession” which is assumed to follow in the footsteps of the pandemic: “a recession is likely to lead to increasing crime. Increased unemployment and poverty will increase the recruitment base for local criminal networks ”.
The forecast for migration is the same: "that the number of migrants in the world is increasing sharply". And then "human trafficking also increases from the most affected countries to more prosperous destinations". This will also affect the police.
According to the business analysis, the greatest risk group for being exposed to recruitment attempts by "established criminals" is "foreign-born persons in the exposed areas". The result is that "the gangs receive an addition of children, mainly young boys, even as young as 8 to 12 years, who can transport firearms and drugs".
According to the business analysis, there are two ways to go about succeeding better in trying to fight organized crime. One is crime prevention work.
The second is so-called "incapacitation": to deprive a criminal of the opportunity to continue to commit new crimes. The closest thing is then deprivation of liberty in combination with convictions. Another possibility is a developed defector business. In both cases, it is based on improved information and intelligence functions at the individual level and a developed collaboration with other authorities.
Politically, aggravated violence is an increasingly charged issue. The business analysis predicts that the political pressure on the police will increase gradually by both "the Riksdag and the government probably tightening their expectations and demands".
One proposed measure in the analysis is "a survey of the responsibilities of various authorities" to "prevent individuals from falling into serious crime".
Criminal gangs "do not arise and cannot function without individuals as members and participants". According to the business analysis, it is up to the government to ensure that such a survey is carried out - and thus the responsibility for combating organized crime is partly sent back to the political level.
On Tuesday, the National Police Chief Anders Thornberg is called to the Riksdag's Justice Committee. The topic is Deputy Chief of Police Mats Löfving's statement about clans and 40 family-based criminal networks, part of the crime that the business analysis aims to combat without the term itself being used.
