Women in prison – quintuple the number of places by 2033

Five times as many women will be in prison in 2033. That’s what the Prison Service writes in a report.

For the first time, there is a need for maximum security prisons for women.

The number of places in custody and in prisons must triple by the year 2033. That is what the correctional service concluded in a report last year.

And the need for more places for women is even greater. The number of women in correctional facilities has increased since mid-2021. And the trend is expected to continue. The places must be quintupled by 2033, from around 400 today to around 2,000. This is what the Prison Service has concluded in a new report.

– We have to work with it in the same way as we do on the men’s side. Both with double occupancy and with new construction, says Ulrika Lilljekvist who wrote the report “More women in prison”.

More women are gang criminals

The need for new places is greatest in the lowest security class, class 3. They are also the easiest to create.

– For class three, you don’t always need to build a new prison. You can take over properties and remodel them, she says.

But the Correctional Service now expects that for the first time there will be a need for women’s places in the highest security class, class 1. The assessment is based on the fact that the Police sees that more and more women are involved in gang crime.

When a single woman has been judged to belong to the highest security class today, it has been possible to solve it in institutions with the second highest security class, class 2.

– Now the number of women with these risks is starting to increase. Then we see that we need more devices with increased security.

The Tidö Agreement means that more prison places are needed

Maximum security prisons can be built inside institutions that have security class 2. Or a completely new prison can be built. Which is most likely, Ulrika Lilljestrand cannot answer.

– We have just come to the conclusion that this need is increasing and that we will have to deal with it.

The assessment of how many more places will be needed in the Correctional Service is based on the stiffening of penalties and other changes to the law that will combat gang crime that the governing parties and the Sweden Democrats have agreed upon in the Tidö Agreement.