At the Täby facility there is Sweden’s only special youth department, where convicted persons between the ages of 18 and 21 are serving their sentences.
And in the future, even younger inmates may be relevant. The Prison Service has received in task by the government to prepare youth prisoners for people between the ages of 15 and 17 who have murdered or committed other serious crimes. They will be ready on July 1, 2026.
Täby is one of a total of eight institutions to be used.
The challenge: school duty
According to Fredrik Thunberg, criminal justice manager for the Täbyanstalten, the business will be faced with completely new challenges if children under 18 are to be received.
Among other things, it is about following the compulsory schooling, which applies until the child has left the highest grade in elementary school or is 18 years of age.
– The school issue will be one of the biggest changes for the Prison and Probation Service, in addition to child rights issues. It is about being guilty and having a task to run a regular school.
The Prison and Probation Service must therefore employ teachers in order to be able to teach everything from mathematics, to language, to sports.
In addition, the institutions will be obliged to take into account the requirements of children’s rights and the requirement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. At the same time, they must balance it with the requirement for community protection.
– We must also find a safe and secure environment for the staff and the inmates who come here, says Fredrik Thunberg.
Reduced lock -in time
The Children’s Convention stipulates, among other things, that children have the right to access information via, for example, the Internet, radio and television. However, Fredrik Thunberg notes that it is necessary to limit access to mobile and the Internet.
– We must meet the requirements that exist, but at the same time make adjustments that work for the closed environment of the Prison and Probation Service.
In the youth department today, they have their own rooms – about seven square meters in size – which they are locked in from seven in the evening to seven in the morning. The plan is for the lock -in time to be reduced to ten hours per day if children between the ages of 15 and 17 come to the facility.
Fredrik Thunberg emphasizes that no children should really sit detained.
– But these children have ended up in a very difficult situation that they cannot handle themselves, and we have to do something to protect them and society, he continues.
Yesterday 19:34