Sexual Assaults at Highest Ever Level in Sweden, New Figures Reveal

Sweden’s National Council on Crime Prevention released their latest Swedish Crime Survey on Wednesday which revealed that a growing number of Swedes are victims of crime, when compared to figures from previous years. The figures, which are for 2016, revealed that crime levels are at their highest since records began in 2006.

In total, more than 15% of people surveyed said that they had been a victim of at least one crime in 2016; a figure which is up from 13.3% the previous year.

Criminology Researcher, Manne Gerell, told The Local:

What really stands out is that this is such a broad increase, affecting almost all types of crime. I think this rise is worrying; it’s something that deserves a lot of attention. We’ve had declining or at least stable rates of victimisation over the past ten years at least in Sweden, and now it looks like the trend has shifted to an increase in crime.

In particular, acts of harassment and sexual assaults are on the rise in Sweden, with the percentage of victims increasing from 4.1% to 5.5% and from 0.8% to 2.4% respectively (2012-2016 figures). Although this change in percentage may seem small, please bear in mind that the increase in sexual assaults from 1.7% in 2015 to 2.4% in 2016 is an increase to a whopping 181,000 people. In fact, 4.1% of the total female population in Sweden say they have been a victim of at least one sexual offence.

Brå suggest that only around 11% of sexual offence victims choose to report the act to police.

These figures are particularly shocking considering that Defend Europa reported in July that 43% of rapes in Sweden are carried out on children. Additionally, we also reported that 92% of all “severe rapes” (violent rapes) in Sweden are carried out by people with a migratory/asylum background.

Despite the correlation between the demographic changes in Sweden over the past decade and the increase in harassment and sexual offences, officials seem unable to pin down a reason for the increase.

Gerell continues:

One possible reason is the problems facing the Swedish police at the moment. They feel like they lack the resources to do their job properly, and they struggle to investigate homicides and shootings, so there’s even less time to spend on things like burglaries and other more common crimes.

So that’s one plausible explanation, but this can’t explain the whole change. There’s likely something else but I wouldn’t know what that is. We’ll need to know much more in order to direct our resources, for example is the rise affecting some particular places, certain types of crime, or certain types of victims or offenders?

The Swedish police are clearly being pushed to their limits. In 2015, it was reported that only 14% of all crimes in Sweden were solved and around 80% of police officers were considering quitting the force.

As well as juggling the crimes included in the above Brå survey – and as well as searching for the tens of thousands of declined asylum seekers that have disappeared into the country without a trace – the Swedish Security Police (Säpo) revealed in August that they receive on average around 6000 leads per month in relation to terrorism and extremism. This is a figure which is up from 2000 leads per month in 2012.

Perhaps with the increase in crime and terrorism that Third World immigration is bringing to the country, it’s no surprise that Swedish authorities are struggling to cope with the influx.

Laura is an editor and writer at Defend Europa.