Almost four out of ten entrepreneurs never report a crime, shows a new report produced by Företagarna.
The main reason for not reporting the crimes is because there is no point in reporting them.
– In a dream world, I would of course have hoped that even petty crimes could be dealt with by the police, says entrepreneur Simon Vikström.
Simon Vikström runs a brewery south of Uppsala and about a year ago his business was subject to a burglary. The thieves did not steal anything of any great value, but the entrance door was broken. He first tried to report the crime, but after standing in a long phone line that dragged on, he gave up on reporting the crime to the police.
– My previous experience after he reported a fraud attempt was that it was shut down and I have heard from other entrepreneurs that nothing comes of it, he says.
I see no point in reporting
In a survey carried out by the member organization Företagarna, almost 40 percent of business owners answer that they never report crimes to the police. It is almost a doubling compared to 2017. Of the entrepreneurs who have been exposed to crime, four out of ten respond that they see no point in reporting the crime.
The next most common explanation is that it is too complicated to report to the police. Tobias Adielsson, crime expert at Företagarna, believes that his members want to make a report, but that they have seen from previous experience that it leads nowhere and therefore gave up.
– The consequences of this will be that the crimes against the companies will become invisible. The police, authorities and politicians use the statistics and see reality through them, then they cannot put in the right measures, he says.
Affects the country’s entrepreneurs
The survey also shows that entrepreneurs who do not report crimes due to the risk of penalties have quadrupled in two years, from one percent to four percent.
– I think that the gang formation we see in Sweden also affects Sweden’s entrepreneurs. They see that this is a way to make money and focus on entrepreneurs, says Tobias Adielsson.
Simon, who runs the brewery, had to pay the deductible for the broken door and wishes it were easier to report crimes to the police.
– It is clear that it would have been very nice if it had been known that even petty crimes would not pay off for those who commit the crimes so that they actually go there, he says.