Facts: The Norwegian Institute Board (Sis)
The State Board of Institutions (Sis) is a state authority that conducts compulsory care, investigation and treatment. Every year, Sis accepts approximately 1,000 young people between the ages of 12 and 21 with behavioral disorders and serious social problems and 1,000 people over 18 with life-threatening addiction.
Care is provided at 24 special youth homes and 11 LVM homes across the country.
Sis is also responsible for young people who have been sentenced to closed youth care for, among other things, murder, manslaughter, assault, sexual offences, robbery, drug offenses and arson. In 2019, 73 young people were taken in, they were between 16 and 19 years old. The average age at admission was 17.2 years. Since 2015, the average sentence has increased from 296 days to 366 days.
Sis offers individual treatment and care is differentiated based on the special needs of different groups.
Source: Sis
There have been several alarms about the work environment at Sis in recent years. According to Frida Strandberg Landin, president of the Seko på Sis trade union, threats, hatred and violence are commonplace for many of the employees of the State Board of Institutions (Sis), which runs youth homes across the country.
— The violence is coarser, more planned and more instrumental. We almost never saw making our own weapons before, now it is much more common, she says.
Blackmail common problem
During Friday, two young men were requested to be detained on suspicion of, among other things, attempted extortion and attempted murder and instigation of attempted murder after an explosion in Södertälje earlier this week. One of the men is admitted to a Sis home and according to information to The evening paper and SVT the blast was aimed at a Sis employee who refused to smuggle in a phone.
Sis has not wanted to comment on the information, but refers to the police investigation. Neither Strandberg Landin can say anything about the information, but says that pressure and extortion are a common problem in several of the country’s institutions.
“Especially at the institutions that have security class 1. There it is more difficult to get things in, so there the staff have to endure a completely different climate of extortion than at other institutions,” says Strandberg Lundin.
In a member survey that Seko conducted last year, it was found that every third Seko member who works at Sis has been exposed to violence at work. Over half had been threatened at work in the past six months. At the same time, the number of incidents has continued. This summer, several high-profile escapes have occurred, including one in which a female employee was taken hostage by two young people.
“Takes very seriously
According to Si’s security director Christer Johansson, the authority has been in the process of change for a couple of years to meet societal developments. There, the safety of the employees is high on the agenda.
— It is something we take very seriously. That is one of the reasons why we set up a security department and we work actively to make security assessments all the time. We have also introduced a new deviation system where we look at events in a more structured way, he says.
In a letter to the government this spring, Sis requested increased funding in order to “develop safe and secure compulsory care”. In the homestead, Sis points to a serious social development with increased violence and crime at ever lower ages. Both Christer Johansson and Frida Strandberg Landin are on the same track.
— I am worried about everyone’s working environment. We have many good tools, but much within Sis is also outdated. Electronic development, for example, is a very important security issue. Being able to have contact with criminal gangs on the outside is something we must be able to tighten up, says Frida Strandberg Landin.