The major reorganization in 2015, where 21 local police authorities merged into one, created an organization with the opportunity to gather strength where needed and when required, according to Lena Nitz, chairman of the Police Association. She thinks this is positive, but the downside is that it becomes noticeable for the town that gets rid of its police.
– It is based on the fact that this lack of police means that the authority has to prioritize hard and then places like Laholm are hit hard, she says.
Like the municipal police Kristian Nilsson, she does not believe that more police is the whole solution. We need to take a greater grip on the way in which the police authority distributes its resources and review how the police should be used, she says.
– It has been a bit one-eyed and is mostly about the number of police officers all the time. As long as we come up in numbers, it will be good, they say, but that is not the case.
What should you do then?
– Passport management is an example. Is there really anything that cops need to do? Or administration, which you spend an incredible number of hours on, and which other than police officers could do at least as well, says Lena Nitz.
Manne Gerell is an associate professor of Criminology at Malmö University. He believes that the great focus placed on gangs, gun violence and explosions can harm other parts of the police. For example, the small town police.
– Because both the police and politics focus so hard on it, you lose focus on everything else and there is a risk of new problems emerging that may cause it in the future, he says.
One of the backs with that resources are taken from stations like the one in Laholm to reinforce elsewhere is a lack of quality in police work. The police who are on loan lack local knowledge and do not know the local criminals.
– It creates a worse condition for doing a good job and therefore they probably produce a little worse police work than what they had done in their hometown, says Manne Gerell and emphasizes that it is his own thesis and that there is a lack of research in the field.
At the same time, he believes that more police officers is still an important step that has an effect.
– If you had more police in Laholm, it would have less of an impact on the business there if two were sent to Halmstad, Trollhättan or Örebro or wherever it may be.