Despite the government’s ambition – fewer convicts are deported

Despite the government’s ambition to deport more convicted criminals, there were fewer.

The number of criminals forced to leave the country dropped by 50 people last year, according to the police.

In total, 900 criminals are now waiting to be deported because of crimes, according to the border police. That is an increase from 700 in 2022.

It is about criminals who may have committed serious crimes such as rape, murder, drug and weapons offences, and who have been sentenced to deportation.

About half of them are still serving sentences. Others have been placed in custody after serving their sentences – and there are also those who have been released.

Released – deviates

The head of the Border Police, Cajsa Velden, cannot answer how many are taken into custody or released. But she says that it is difficult with those who are released.

– They live out in the community and when we go to find them, they have disappeared.

At the end of 2023, 55 people sentenced to deportation were wanted by the police.

In total, the police sent 341 criminals sentenced to deportation out of the country last year, which was 50 fewer than in 2022.

The reduction occurs despite the Tidö parties’ ambitions to deport more convicted criminals, and despite the government having pressured the police to increase the number of enforced deportation orders due to crime.

Great difficulties

According to the police, the development is due to the fact that the majority of criminal deportation cases concern nationalities where it is very difficult to enforce deportation orders.

Many simply cannot be deported immediately when the sentence is served. It may, for example, be due to an armed conflict in the home country, or the country refusing to accept the citizen.

Cajsa Velden points to Afghanistan as an example.

– We currently have no relationship with the Taliban there, and that makes it very difficult to make contact in order to succeed in an enforcement. In those matters we do not really achieve success.

Today, roughly 100 convicted criminals await deportation to Afghanistan. About the same number are to be deported to Syria, around 50 to Morocco and around 40 to Iraq.

Cajsa Velden explains that fewer convicted criminals were deported last year with the fact that there was a lower number that were currently being deported.

– The fact that it dips a little in 2023 is not due to the fact that we did not have resources or prio on the assignment, but it is that we have a lower number of cases to work with which results in it looking the way it does.

She says the number could rise next year when more people have served their sentences.

The rules on deportation due to crimes were tightened in August 2022, with the aim that more people would be sentenced to deportation.

FACT Deportation of convicted criminals

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