If all of the Tidö Agreement’s proposals for harsher punishments were to be fulfilled at the same time, the pressure on Sweden’s prisons will be too high – both the Correctional Service and the courts are raising the alarm about this.
– If you don’t care at all about what we say about the need to ease the pressure on the other end, then we risk ending up in a very awkward situation, said Director General of the Correctional Service Martin Holmgren in SVT’s 30 minutes earlier this week.
Flows: Nothing happens all at once
The Minister of Justice is very understanding of the authority’s concerns, but is adamant that the reforms must be completed.
It is not possible to implement at a fast pace, according to the Director General of the Correctional Service, what is your answer to that?
– Yes, if everything happens at the same time, but it doesn’t.
Strömmer believes that the changes will be implemented over time.
– We will not be able to see the full effects of the reforms until five, ten or perhaps 15 years from now. Nothing will happen here and now all at once, he says.
“Important, desirable and necessary”
According to Strömmer, that more people should be in prison and for a longer period of time is “important, desirable and necessary”. At the same time, he believes that other criminal policy efforts can reduce the pressure on the Correctional Service over time.
– The most important thing we can do is push back on crime. Which we do by cracking down on violence, strangling the criminal economy and breaking new recruitment in the gangs, says the minister.