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full screen There has been a shortage of space in the country’s prisons and detention centers for several years. Archive image. Photo: Caisa Rasmussen/TT
Overcrowding at the prisons forces the Correctional Service into staff mode. This means concretely.
The Correctional Service has established a national staff that will work with space utilization and emergency space creation in the short term. The reason is the acute shortage of places in the country’s institutions and detention centers.
The last time the Correctional Service went into staff mode was in September 2020. Even then, the reason was an acute shortage of places in the country’s institutions and detention centers.
Staff mode means, Director General Martin Holmgren told us at the time, that usual routines are dispensed with, among other things through shorter decision-making paths and that special competences are gathered in a staff with extended powers.
The purpose, according to the Correctional Service, is to maximize existing resources to deal with the acute shortage of places in both institutions and detention centers where occupancy is over 100 percent.
Detainees are already forced to remain in police custody. According to the authority, the situation will worsen before the situation gets better as a result of the planned expansion of the number of detention and institution places which is supposed to last until 2033.
The national so-called incident management staff is established during the period 13 February to 31 May 2024.