Sweden has repeatedly been criticized for isolating children in custody, and last summer a new law came into effect, which gives detained 15-17-year-olds the right to stay with another person for at least four hours a day.
According to Ekot’s review, on 1,400 occasions in the past year, the Correctional Service has kept children in isolation for more hours than the law allows. This corresponds to almost a third of all days that children were held in custody, if one excludes the days when there were obstacles to the isolation-breaking measure, such as the person’s own refusal.
— It is unsatisfactory that we do not succeed in this commitment and we must do everything we can at all levels to secure this right that is at issue, says Vilhelm Grevik, unit manager for the prison and detention department at the Correctional Service, to Echo.
Grevik explains the problem with, among other things, the lack of staff that prevails in many detention centers.