The shootings and bombings take place in an unprecedented way. Often, both perpetrator and victim are children, and new recruitment is something that the justice system is currently putting a lot of focus on.
Luay “Lolo” Mohageb, a civilian youth crime investigator at the police, has seen the trend of very young perpetrators of violence in the past but says it has gotten worse in recent years.
– I would say that we started to see that development in the last two or three years, where children have been actively used to carry out very serious acts of violence, precisely because the criminal justice system looks the way it does, he says in Nyhetsmorgon.
“A beacon”
The crime investigator believes that the shift may be linked to the culture.
– The most criminally active young people today were around 11-12 years old when the gangster rap wave swept over Sweden, around 2018, 2019, says Mohageb and continues:
– Since then, Swedish youth culture has been totally marinated in gangsterism, in materialistic worship, in obsession with money. Gangster mentality has become like a beacon for boys and girls and something to aspire to because the subculture has become strong among the youth.
The impact of social media
Gangster romanticization happens a lot through rap music in particular, Mohageb believes, but also through the way the criminal gangs market themselves on social media.
– Then, quite frankly, how the media, and I also on YouTube, almost push the criminals up as status symbols. And if a youth culture is corrupt, they will see it as something to aspire to.
A total of eleven people have been killed in shootings during September in Sweden, which means that
this is the deadliest month when it comes to gun violence,
since the police started counting.