From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   How Peaceful Sweden Became Europe’s Gun-Murder Capital   
   By Sune Engel Rasmussen, May 22, 2023, WSJ   
      
   Turf wars for control of the drug trade, driven by an influx of guns, personal   
   vendettas and a pool of available youths, many from marginalized migrant   
   communities, have resulted in a gun-homicide rate approx. 2.5 times the   
   European average, according to    
   the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.   
      
   With 62 people shot dead last year, up from 45 in 2021, Sweden’s overall   
   homicide rate is about one-sixth of the U.S.’s. But in a European context,   
   it is extraordinary. Stockholm’s gun-murder rate was roughly 30 times higher   
   per capita than London†  
   ™s.   
      
   Perpetrators are becoming younger, and are also resorting to increasingly   
   violent tactics such as throwing hand grenades and placing bombs, injuring a   
   growing number of bystanders, including children.   
      
   The scale of the violence that accompanied the growing gang warfare has   
   shocked many Swedes. The wife of one gang member was shot dead in the street   
   while holding her newborn child in her arms. In January, a restaurant in a   
   trendy neighborhood in central    
   Stockholm was struck by a bomb blast.   
      
   Stockholm residents say they worry that their children could be lured into   
   crime.   
      
   â€œI have a son who is 13. It’s easy for him to get tempted,â€� said one   
   resident of Alby, a southern suburb of the capital. A police helicopter   
   circled above two nearby apartment blocks cordoned off by police after a   
   stabbing an hour earlier. “I    
   grew up here. I always felt safe. Now I am afraid to go outside after 8   
   p.m.,â€� she said.   
      
   Because most shootings in Sweden take place among individuals from migrant   
   backgrounds, they have fueled a surge of right-wing populism. In the 2022   
   election, the Sweden Democrats, a party that has roots in Nazism and blames   
   Sweden’s liberal migration    
   policies for the violence, gained more than 20% of the votes to become the   
   country’s second-largest. Today it rejects Nazism and white nationalism on   
   its platform.   
      
   The new center-right government has promised to tighten migration policies,   
   double sentences for offenses committed in “gang environments,â€� widen the   
   use of electronic surveillance and expel more criminals who aren’t Swedish   
   citizens.     
      
   â€œCompared internationally, we have had a much laxer criminal law. And we   
   have now lost control over the situation,â€� said Daniel Bergström, an   
   adviser to the Swedish minister of justice.   
      
   Experts, however, say there is no simple explanation for the violence.   
      
   Nikoi Djane, a former gang member turned criminologist, said authorities had   
   failed to help refugees integrate into society, instead segregating them from   
   society in housing estates with few job opportunities or treatment for   
   conditions like post-   
   traumatic stress disorder.   
      
   â€œThe perpetrators have a responsibility, but they are also victims of their   
   circumstances,â€� Djane said.   
      
   Manne Gerell, an associate professor at Malmö University with expertise in   
   organized crime, said the problem was caused by poor integration and   
   exacerbated by years of insufficient response from authorities, police and   
   politicians.   
      
   Today, an estimated 75% to 80% of deadly shootings remain unsolved, and the   
   low risk of getting caught has prompted a growing number of youths to kill for   
   bounties issued by gang leaders, said Salihu, the crime expert.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-peaceful-sweden-became-europes-   
   un-murder-capital-a5b500a7   
      
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