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Handwritten letters with pictures, sexual requests and indirect threats.
Several young women tell Aftonbladet about their fear after receiving unwanted letters from prisoners.
– That they are allowed to create a network of new potential victims during their time in the institution is frightening. It shouldn’t be allowed to happen like that, says Gabriella.
“Hello, you don’t know me but I want to get to know you,” it says in a sprawling handwriting.
Beatrice freezes where she stands. She reads the letter once more to make sure she really got it right.
The sender writes that he is in prison and has opened his eyes to her.
Now the thoughts begin to spin uncontrollably and a pressing feeling over the chest forces her to gasp for breath.
The letter must be sent to the wrong person – it can’t be meant for her, she thinks. But yes, her name and address are clearly written on the envelope.
Beatrice – whose real name is something else – is not alone in having experienced this.
In Facebook groups, several women have shared testimonies about how they received letters from convicted criminals who are in prisons around the country. Men who are serving sentences for, among other things, assaulting women, unlawful threats, violations of the weapons law and drug possession.
Three of the women Aftonbladet spoke to want to anonymously talk about their experiences – to raise the issue and give insight into the difficult situation they find themselves in.
We choose to call them Beatrice, Gabriella and Lena.
All three have received letters from men with whom they have no connection whatsoever. In the first letters, the men begin to introduce themselves briefly, asking questions and wishing to hear more about the women.
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full screen Letter written by an incarcerated man to one of the women we spoke to. Photo: Private
“Really creepy”
Some of the men say they saw the women in the local media and then looked up their addresses. Others have found them on social media.
“I have thought about you sometimes. Haha, now I sound like the worst psychopath but I’m not. I found your address and thought I had to try writing,” writes a man who had several restraining orders against former partners and who was sentenced to several years in prison for, among other things, aggravated assault, aggravated weapons offense and several cases of illegal threats.
– It felt really creepy and absurd. In an institution there is someone locked up who has obviously been thinking about me for a while and then looked up my address, says Gabriella.
A couple of years ago she received one of these letters.
– Then after looking up the person and his judgments, I became completely ice cold inside. He had almost killed his ex-girlfriend, says Gabriella.
A strong anxiety grew in her. How would she protect herself and her daughter if the convicted felon suddenly appeared and knocked on the family’s door?
He knew where she lived and wrote that he would be released within a few months.
Lena, 25, felt a similar concern. The man who contacted her wrote that he was coming out in three months and that he wanted a pen pal until then. She immediately decided not to answer but shortly afterwards she was contacted by an acquaintance of the man who questioned why she did not answer the letters.
– I was very cut and it felt terribly unfunny, says Lena.
Sleepless nights
Several of the women testify to sleepless nights filled with anxiety, fear of leaving their homes and being forced to look over their shoulders when they are outside.
Many of them wonder the same thing, what should they do? And how can the convicted criminals be able to look up their addresses in this way when they are inside a prison?
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fullscreenGabriella looked up the man who had written to her. “He had almost killed his ex-girlfriend,” she says. Photo: Jerker Ivarsson
When Beatrice, 28, received the first letter, she did not know how to act. She was worried about how the man who wrote would react if she didn’t answer, so she finally chose to send a short reply.
– But I shouldn’t have done that, because then it just went downhill and there was a letter a week after that. What he wrote became more and more sexually focused. Then I didn’t answer.
Shortly after that, another man from the same institution contacted Beatrice. He sent pictures of himself and asked if he could call her.
Then Beatrice contacted the institution and asked that they not allow the men to send her letters from the institution. It worked for about two months, but then the letters kept coming.
Unpleasant sexual requests
The first man immediately wrote inappropriate questions and desires about what he wanted to do with her.
– It feels so disgusting. He wrote and asked if I liked the letters and that he will be out soon. I am terrified, says Beatrice.
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full screenGabriella is critical of men convicted of violent crimes having the opportunity to send letters from inside the prisons. Photo: Jerker Ivarsson
She has only dared to tell a couple of close friends about this, but doesn’t know how to handle the situation. She thinks she should contact the police, but at the same time doubts whether they will even be able to help her at this point.
– I get feelings of panic that he knows where I live. But I don’t want my family to have to share my worries now so I’ve kept quiet. Since it’s nothing more than letters at the moment, I don’t know if the police will even do anything about it.
“Need for a change”
Beatrice is living with the fear right now but for Gabriella the worst time of worry has passed and she has not had any more letters sent to her. She wants to discourage anyone who receives letters like this from responding.
– I thank the gods that there were not more letters from him. But not everyone is as lucky as I was. Once they’ve got the hang of it, it’s not as likely that they’ll stop writing, says Gabriella.
She is critical of the fact that men convicted of violent crimes have the opportunity to send letters from inside the prisons to basically any women they want.
– Considering the background of these men, it does not feel very reassuring that it can actually happen this way, says Gabriella and continues:
– Then when you contact the authorities, they say they can’t do anything because the laws look the way they do. But it is we who sit completely unprotected out in society who have to live with the fear after receiving letters like this sent to us. I really think some change should be made to counteract this. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen, says Gabriella.