Strömmer: The authorities are lagging behind

Many children and young people are recruited into gangs via apps and social media – and the authorities are lagging behind, according to Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (M).

– A change in the world that we have to catch up with is precisely that recruitment has been moved from the physical environment to the digital environment. There, our system has not been equipped to meet the regrouping, he says in SVT’s “30 Minuten”.

When the government took office in 2022, there were 21 children under the age of 15 who were suspected of involvement in murder cases, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Last year, the same figure was 120 children.

Strömmer describes it as a “cynical, almost industrial” recruitment.

– There the curves point in the wrong direction, he says in “30 minutes”.

In order to break the recruitment and also get access to the gang leaders who order murders and bombings, Strömmer wants the police to be allowed to use secret means of coercion, even against very young people.

– Then, for example, the police must be able to unlock mobile phones of children under 15 years of age.