Crime is rampant and there are not enough police in Stockholm – the reason for the police shortage is not fear | Foreign countries

VADDO Back off! roars Jenny Engstrom and forcefully pushes a much larger man backwards.

It’s an exercise, and the opponent is a teacher, but Engström and the other students take the situation seriously. They sweat in the gym because they want to be a police officer.

Last year, 36-year-old Engström failed the entrance exams to the police academy. He passed the psychological tests but not the cycling test.

In the fall, he started his year-long studies at Väddö folk college, in order to do better next spring.

There are no policemen on the streets

There is an order for the training, because there are not enough law enforcement officers in Sweden to fill all the jobs. At the same time, gangs and criminal networks operate increasingly prominently in the country.

The goal of the police has been to have 26,200 police officers in the country at the end of this year. In September, a couple of thousand police officers were exhausted from the goal.

The number of police officers has grown steadily since 2017, but the goals set by successive governments have not been met. Police officer jobs have been filled with people who do not have police training.

Especially in Stockholm, there has been a worrying shortage of police officers for years. Almost half of the unfilled positions are in the capital region. Reasons for this include the city’s poor housing situation and the salary level of the police.

The shortage of police officers can be seen in everyday work, says the growth coordinator Magnus Larsson From the Stockholm police.

– We don’t have enough police on the streets and markets, he says.

Larsson works in a group established by the Stockholm police this year, which works to get more police officers to the capital.

Rarely during the week does the news tell about acts of violence, explosions or shootings in the Stockholm area.

In Sweden, the police have had to act in critical situations where reinforcement has not been available when it would have been needed. In a survey conducted two years ago, one in four police officers said they had been in such a situation.

Crime is not scary

According to Larsson, it’s not that the news about crime and the challenges faced by the police drive young people away. The problem has mainly been that those who want to do not pass the entrance exams.

In Finland too, there have been problems filling study places at the police academy.

In Sweden, the number of applicants has been around four to five thousand in the past year. The exams have many parts, which the applicant goes through in stages. If one part is failed, the exams end there.

A couple of years ago, more than half of the applicants failed the psychological tests and a quarter failed the aptitude test measuring logical reasoning, said the Swede Police magazine. In 2022, changes were made to the exam, which increased the number of passers.

The police are not talking about lowering the bar, but say they have changed the requirements to reflect today’s reality.

Jenny Engström says that the news about shootings and gang crime or anything told at school has not made her afraid.

In Sweden, many ways have been tried to get more police officers. This fall, the government proposed that police students would have their student loans forgiven.

According to Magnus Larsson of the Stockholm police, one of the problems in Stockholm is housing, as there is a constant shortage of apartments in the city. Students have been offered help looking for an apartment, he says.

The police also try to be visible and become known to young people.

– We have started calling individual people and attracting them to continue the application process. It has produced a lot of results, says Larsson.

From a bus driver to a police officer

The line, which has been operating for the first year in Vädtö, could be called a police preschool. It prepares students for the police school entrance exams and increases understanding of what it is like to work as a police officer.

36-year-old Jenny Engström has always wanted to be a police officer, but she became a mother in her twenties. The profession did not suit that life. Now the children have grown up, and it is Engström’s turn to realize his dream.

He would be a pleasant employee for the police. The goal is to increase diversity, i.e. hire more women and people with an immigrant background.

Engström wants to be a neighborhood police officer who would go around schools meeting young people and talking about police work. For him, this would be a way to deal with growing youth crime and gang violence.

– I would like children and young people not to be afraid of the police but to dare to come and talk. That they would think that we are here to help, says Engström.

Väddö’s course has students of all ages and genders.

Thor Thorndahl is a 28-year-old bus driver from Stockholm, but in the future he hopes to be a traffic policeman. In the running lap, Thorndahl lags behind the others, but his fellow students cheer him on to the finish line.

The performance is a personal victory for him.

– When I came here, I could barely run four hundred meters. Now I can run more than two kilometers and it feels wonderful, says Thorndahl.

Thorndahl praises the teaching. In addition to targeted exercise, the study program covers topics such as criminal law, investigation techniques and conflict management. Students do simulation exercises about meeting people, and the classes are attended by professional police officers.

Thorndahl says he is worried about crime, but sees that this is exactly why the police profession is important.

Väddö is located on the Swedish coast, one hundred kilometers from Stockholm. Thorndahl, like most of the students, lives at the school.

Works as the head teacher Bertil Mattsson, who has more than forty years of experience in the Swedish police in various positions. He has retired from his post, but accepted the invitation to come train those who want to become police officers.

Mattsson believes that one of the reasons for the police shortage lies in pay and the demands of the job.

– Many may leave when they realize what the job is really like. Especially in the beginning, it’s not an eight to four office job.

According to Mattsson, the development of education could be one way to correct the situation. In his opinion, students could immediately focus on either the criminal or public order police. In this case, misunderstandings and disappointments would be avoided.

From the perspective of the police, there is light on the horizon: this year, the study places at the police academies were completely filled. In the last ten years, this has happened only once before.