Former Sis employees tell SVT Nyheter that many locked-up young people can surf for several hours every day and that there are unsupervised phone calls to friends and relatives.
– I have worked with people who have murdered and raped. You don’t let them walk around with iPads, do they? Well, that’s right, they can look up where you live. They started guessing my last name, says a former employee at the Tysslinge youth center outside Södertälje.
“Standing and waiting”
Two days have passed since a 17-year-old convicted of murder who was locked up at the residence was released in connection with a dental visit in central Södertälje. He is still at large on Saturday. Electronic communication was crucial for the exemption to be carried out, former Sis employees state.
– That was what enabled him to escape. It’s simple as hell, you fake a toothache, we make an urgent appointment, he is told what time the transport will pick him up and he contacts his friends via iPad and then they stand there waiting.
Want to see stricter rules
Sis calls for greater opportunities to limit communication. Young people at Sis can have a limited right to electronic communication, but only for 14 days at a time, and according to the regulations, that possibility must be used restrictively. An investigator is currently looking into the issue on behalf of the government, and will present his proposals this autumn.
– The problem is that we have legislation that covers a range of young people from 12-year-olds to these older boys and girls who have been convicted of serious violent crimes, says Tomas Fjellvind, director of the Sis home Johannisberg in Kalix.
Even young people who have had their surfing time limited to one hour per day must regularly have been able to surf for significantly longer than that, according to former employees at the Sis home in Tysslinge.
“You let them have the iPad and they keep quiet,” says a former employee.
Earlier this year, SKR stated that serious crime has increased the severity of both Sis and HVB, and SVT has shown in a survey that young people who run away from youth homes are recruited by criminal gangs.