“In light of the serious threat that criminal networks and other organized crime pose to the operations of the Correctional Service and society in general, however, current control options are deemed insufficient.”
So writes the Prison and Probation Service in a letter to the government, decided by the Director General Martin Holmgren.
The background to the request is a forecast that the number of employees in Swedish prisons and detention centers will increase by 200 percent in ten years – from 10,000 to 30,000 employees.
But such extensive recruitment is not completely risk-free. In 2023 alone, 144 suspected cases where correctional officers risked becoming “enablers for criminals” were discovered, according to The Express.
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Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TTKriminalvården cannot check employees in registers
Now the Correctional Service chooses to sound the alarm, and demands increased opportunities to check its employees during and before employment.
At the moment, for example, they are not allowed to check whether an existing employee, or a person who visits the institution to perform a job (artisan, teacher, interpreter, etc.), appears in the charge register.
The Correctional Service therefore assesses that there is a risk that people with connections to organized crime seek employment at specific businesses in order to obtain information.
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The Correctional Service wants to change that
According to Expressen, the Correctional Service proposes changes to three regulations and two laws in its request to the Ministry of Justice and the Minister of Justice Gunnar Strommer (M).
This applies to: the ordinance on suspicion registers, the ordinance on criminal records, the ordinance on enforcement of custodial sentences, the Prison Act and the Detention Act.
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