Is anyone else unable to get through this capture page? Every time it comes up I end up doing countless captures, clicking not a robot, round and round, never get through.
Shootings occur in all kinds of areas in the major cities, but also in smaller towns. Sweden has also had a worrying number of bombs outside stairwells in residential areas and in detached houses. Therefore, the problems are not only concentrated in marginalized areas or what the Swedish Police call, particularly vulnerable areas. Per capita, Sweden has twice as many gang members as Mexico but you can hardly compare the gang structures in the two countries.
Although it happens that innocent people die or get injured, the acts are targeted at active gang members and, more recently, tragically, their families to a greater extent.
The problems are significant in the context of gang crime, but it's not like an ordinary person needs to be afraid of being out for a walk or being assaulted, robbed, or attacked by gangs. In Malmö, which is Sweden's third-largest city and is located near Copenhagen, gang problems have significantly decreased in recent years through Group Violence Intervention efforts.
I'm not trying to gloss over the problems, which are significant, but I understand that the authorities and communities have the will, knowledge, and resources to change the situation.
Next time some article about shootings in the US or shows up on HN, will people remember these exact points?
So many probably mostly Europeans and Australians have a completely unrealistic views on actual risk of getting harmed by guns in the US. Yes, they have many shootings there but just like in Sweden or pretty much anywhere in "the west" with gun violence, it is mostly criminals shooting each other not terrorists, mass shooters and the police shooting random people.
In places with better access to legal guns there is also often a huge portion of gun induced suicides that are thrown into the statistics for no good reason.
We are all most likely killed by someone close to use regardless of how, so pay attention who you and your loved ones hang out with.
We are all more likely to be killed by hands, feet, knifes, random tools than by the evil AR-15 or a similar type of rifle.
The chance of even getting harms by a gun is incredibly small if you aren't a criminal and you dont point a gun at yourself, its basically a non-existing risk.
Very comparable in the Netherlands, fortunately for now still limited to the larger cities but it is also slowly spreading out from there. Most of this is drug related.
The Netherlands have a big residential bombing issue as well. This issue is not fueled by migration. It's the moralizing prohibition of hard drugs followed by exploding profits, violent market takeovers, corruption and erratic enforcement sparking territorial runs.
It's not a good idea to take in massive amounts of poor and uneducated refugees from distant cultures, give them free money and housing, and then just leave them be. That's not a real migration policy, it's just a recipe for creating a segregated society. The Swedish welfare state has certainly taken care of the basic needs of the migrants, but it hasn't really worked well at actual integration, and creating social mobility. Poorly integrated youths who see no future prospects through honest work are prime material for crime gangs to recruit.
I still haven't figured out whether Swedish politicians and voters didn't realize this, or simply didn't care. What's happening has seemed inevitable to me for well over a decade.
> It's not a good idea to take in massive amounts of poor and uneducated refugees from distant cultures, give them free money and housing, and then just leave them be.
Literally the founding story of European Australia .. the bulk of poor uneducated landed here had criminal records to boot.
Still, they were given work to pass the time and after a few decades 'free' land (well, other peoples land).
These days modern Australia population is ~ 25% born elsewhere with a fair number of refugees and poor migrants but these are matched with education, job opportunities and initial placement in communities they can establish themselves in.
That support is pretty crucial to minimising friction.
I’ve watched this story grow over the last decades or so.
There is no gang problem, its just a conspiracy theory/propaganda.
There is a gang problem but it’s overstated.
There is a serious gang problem.
There is a serious gang problem but it’s bikers.
There is a serious gang problem, OK, it’s not bikers.
There is a serious gang problem, it’s immigrants and immigrant descended Swedes, but it’s Sweden’s fault for not integrating them <-You are here.
For too long, there has been this apathetic "well, if I'm not a gangster, then why should I care?" mentality, because up until lately the crime has been localized to people in the gangs. Gang members killing other gang members, basically.
Even in the no-go areas, you're pretty safe walking around as a civilian. You'd expect those areas (in Sweden) to look like war zones, where the citizens and bystanders are locked up all day, in fear of moving out. Yeah, not so much - the areas are very much "boring" suburban areas.
But, alas, then the gangs started to bomb and shoot up apartments of rivals and their families. Suddenly you're not all that safe, because what if your neighbor turns out to be the second cousin of some local gangbanger?
With that said, all this roots in piss-poor integration. The gang members aren't first generation immigrants, we're talking at least second gen - even third generation.
And like all other organization, be that crime, terrorism, or whatever - they prey on the kids that have fallen outside the system.
I grew up in Sweden, moved around a bit in Europe and lately came back.
What worries me about the country is not primarily gang criminality, but the general degradation of everything that was once good about Swedish society.
Probably still better than a lot of places. Immigrants who come here often praise the system, how well everything works here; but they have no idea how well it used to work.
> Those on the right largely blame immigration, which has added 2mn people to the country in recent decades. Those on the left point to social factors, including the privatisation of Sweden’s welfare system which has led to worse services in deprived areas.
Probably both things are true.
When countries take in large amounts of immigration, their generous welfare systems can become stressed.
I suspect anyone who wants to address the elephant in the room here will have to choose between accepting support from semi-fascist types or getting cancelled
> But in recent years it has achieved notoriety as the hometown of one of Sweden’s most deadly gangs and its notorious leader Rawa Majid, “the Kurdish Fox”, who fled to Turkey in 2018 after a number of drug and violence-related convictions.
> Much of the recent violence is due to a major split in the Foxtrot drug gang, say police. Majid, who was raised in Uppsala by Iraqi parents, is believed to have fallen out with his former right-hand man Ismail Abdo, or “Strawberry”, who also moved to Turkey.
----
"Is there a lot of crime in Sweden?"
"Ja we have a lot of crime. Ours are named Kurdish Fox and Strawberry."
Well, some of the gangs are ran from abroad but absolutely exist in our home turf. But it's true we can't simply arrest the gang leaders, and there are people waiting to take the place of existing middle management as they are imprisoned.
The two root causes of our gang problem is the amount of money drug buyers want to spend, and that it's still possible to combine crime with clean business and launder money through that.
I live next door to a handful small businesses that each employ 2-3 people full time, have maybe 2-3 customers per day paying for services costing about 200-300 kronor (10 minute hair cuts, tanning salons, car reconditioning, 10 minute tire changes, nail sculpture), and they still make a yearly profit of between 0.5 to 2 million kronor according to public records. They are all staffed by people in their 20s that mostly hang around all day. I would assume these businesses are quite cash heavy even though everyone uses card payments nowadays. They are generally owned by people whose main business is property ownership, restaurants and construction, who keep a bunch of smaller businesses on the side. I don't think the state has the resources to even begin looking into this.
As a privacy nut I have always wanted to keep cash but I'm starting to second guess myself.
Multi-ethnic democracy is a harder mode than mono-ethnic democracy, which is why most comparisons of the US failures at various social policies to Scandinavian countries have always bugged me.
People don’t naturally feel as much allegiance to others who look and sound different. It takes time to overcome that.
I fully agree. Globally highly multicultural countries tend to be less stable on average, and it makes perfect sense if we consider basic human biology. We are tribal animals, it's hard to get around that.
Places like Sweden will have it even worse than the US, because migrants need to learn a fully new language to fully integrate, while most migrants to the US have at least some English skills to begin with.
Hungary and Slovakia, the only European countries that haven't allowed illegal immigration in, are at the bottom of that chart, while Sweden is getting rekt...
Legal immigration is of course fine and necessary, as long as the state and socials systems can assimilate it... (Japan is a good example). But articles like this show concerning data points in western countries with uncontrolled migratory policies.
That charts paints a rather skewed picture by only focusing on firearms rather than murder overall. This is not a bad thing to highlight, but you should absolutely not confuse the two.
Looking at [1], murder rate in Slovakia is comparable, and Hungary only slightly lower. Sweden isn't even near the top murder rate in the EU, and a number of other countries which accepted a large number of refugees have lower murder rates than Sweden.
Just because fascism works by its own definitions does not mean that fascism is good. Neither Hungary nor Slovakia are great places to live by most metrics, even for native born citizens.
This is xenophobic BS. Same point was recently made by many Greek far-right chaps, only to find out that the most wanted gang leader was actually Greek (read: EU passport holder). So "illegal immigration" is not the main issue here.
It’s hard to overstate the pace at which Sweden changed since the 00s.
Swedish culture still values multiculturalism. And, during my 20 years there, I was never able to convince anyone about the dangers of tolerating intolerance.
When you check demographics’ stats, you realise that these issues will be compounded in the future. It makes me sad.
I've been predicting a rise in numbers of 'good gangs' in the west for years now. Of course it must start with a rise in bad gangs first. I believe we're heading towards anarchy. The law just doesn't serve the majority anymore.
While this does indeed sound like a problem for Sweden and something they will have to fix, it's worth pointing out that by my calculation the US fatal assault by fire arm rate is 12X the rate that is causing a crisis in Sweden.
The title is all this site is willing to divulge to me.
I just took the train into the city, had a burger & beer, and soon I'll train back home. I have zero worries about my safety.
Anyway, the Right party pulled the balance of power from the Left and formed a centre/right coalition more than a year ago, because of all the bad people coming here and doing bad things. Weren't they going to fix this?
> I just took the train into the city, had a burger & beer, and soon I'll train back home. I have zero worries about my safety.
That's also the life of millions in Ukraine right now so your anecdote doesn't mean much
Looking at the statistics and historical trends paint another picture, of course this isn't El Salvador, but it doesn't mean it's going in the right direction
>Anyway, the Right party pulled the balance of power from the Left and formed a centre/right coalition more than a year ago, because of all the bad people coming here and doing bad things. Weren't they going to fix this?
While I do think problems are way overblown, I don't know if you realize, these issues take generations to fix. If there is one legitimate scary bit about immigration is that it has VERY long-reaching consequences. You can deport someone who just got there, you can't deport someone's grandkid, he has nowhere to return to.
> I just took the train into the city, had a burger & beer, and soon I'll train back home. I have zero worries about my safety.
My grandma smoked since she was a teenager and she is still alive and has no cancer. I guess all tobacco research is just fear-mongering.
> Weren't they going to fix this?
Were they? I’ve read a summary of the Moderate Party manifesto (https://archive.is/v6IYb) and, well, it looked pretty moderate. It looks like those measures will simply prevent exacerbation of the problems rather than solve them in under a year. It’s not like they did something similar to the Salvadoran gang crackdown.
They're not going to fix it because then nobody will vote for them. Besides, they can't fix it, they just needed a bogeyman and there isn't much to fix to begin with. All that you can do is educate and aim to reduce the gap with the next generation or to accept that your own culture isn't static.
Ask the Scottish how they feel about Sweden exporting its culture a while ago.
Are they deporting immigrants (regardless of country of origin) involved in violent crimes? Genuine question.
I know rehabilitation is different in Europe than the US, but there are likely resource constraints for attempting to do so at scale looking at trailing immigration volume.
[+] [-] TecoAndJix|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archsurface|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simmerup|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antics9|2 years ago|reply
Although it happens that innocent people die or get injured, the acts are targeted at active gang members and, more recently, tragically, their families to a greater extent.
The problems are significant in the context of gang crime, but it's not like an ordinary person needs to be afraid of being out for a walk or being assaulted, robbed, or attacked by gangs. In Malmö, which is Sweden's third-largest city and is located near Copenhagen, gang problems have significantly decreased in recent years through Group Violence Intervention efforts.
I'm not trying to gloss over the problems, which are significant, but I understand that the authorities and communities have the will, knowledge, and resources to change the situation.
[+] [-] noxer|2 years ago|reply
We are all most likely killed by someone close to use regardless of how, so pay attention who you and your loved ones hang out with. We are all more likely to be killed by hands, feet, knifes, random tools than by the evil AR-15 or a similar type of rifle. The chance of even getting harms by a gun is incredibly small if you aren't a criminal and you dont point a gun at yourself, its basically a non-existing risk.
[+] [-] jacquesm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namaria|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] letrowekwel|2 years ago|reply
I still haven't figured out whether Swedish politicians and voters didn't realize this, or simply didn't care. What's happening has seemed inevitable to me for well over a decade.
[+] [-] defrost|2 years ago|reply
Literally the founding story of European Australia .. the bulk of poor uneducated landed here had criminal records to boot.
Still, they were given work to pass the time and after a few decades 'free' land (well, other peoples land).
These days modern Australia population is ~ 25% born elsewhere with a fair number of refugees and poor migrants but these are matched with education, job opportunities and initial placement in communities they can establish themselves in.
That support is pretty crucial to minimising friction.
[+] [-] nickdothutton|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TrackerFF|2 years ago|reply
Even in the no-go areas, you're pretty safe walking around as a civilian. You'd expect those areas (in Sweden) to look like war zones, where the citizens and bystanders are locked up all day, in fear of moving out. Yeah, not so much - the areas are very much "boring" suburban areas.
But, alas, then the gangs started to bomb and shoot up apartments of rivals and their families. Suddenly you're not all that safe, because what if your neighbor turns out to be the second cousin of some local gangbanger?
With that said, all this roots in piss-poor integration. The gang members aren't first generation immigrants, we're talking at least second gen - even third generation.
And like all other organization, be that crime, terrorism, or whatever - they prey on the kids that have fallen outside the system.
[+] [-] codr7|2 years ago|reply
What worries me about the country is not primarily gang criminality, but the general degradation of everything that was once good about Swedish society.
Probably still better than a lot of places. Immigrants who come here often praise the system, how well everything works here; but they have no idea how well it used to work.
[+] [-] davemccrea|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silenced_trope|2 years ago|reply
Probably both things are true.
When countries take in large amounts of immigration, their generous welfare systems can become stressed.
Sweden didn't balance the concerns.
[+] [-] whearyou|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrkeen|2 years ago|reply
> Much of the recent violence is due to a major split in the Foxtrot drug gang, say police. Majid, who was raised in Uppsala by Iraqi parents, is believed to have fallen out with his former right-hand man Ismail Abdo, or “Strawberry”, who also moved to Turkey.
----
"Is there a lot of crime in Sweden?"
"Ja we have a lot of crime. Ours are named Kurdish Fox and Strawberry."
"Can't the police do something about them?"
"Oh they don't live here any more."
[+] [-] timcambrant|2 years ago|reply
The two root causes of our gang problem is the amount of money drug buyers want to spend, and that it's still possible to combine crime with clean business and launder money through that.
I live next door to a handful small businesses that each employ 2-3 people full time, have maybe 2-3 customers per day paying for services costing about 200-300 kronor (10 minute hair cuts, tanning salons, car reconditioning, 10 minute tire changes, nail sculpture), and they still make a yearly profit of between 0.5 to 2 million kronor according to public records. They are all staffed by people in their 20s that mostly hang around all day. I would assume these businesses are quite cash heavy even though everyone uses card payments nowadays. They are generally owned by people whose main business is property ownership, restaurants and construction, who keep a bunch of smaller businesses on the side. I don't think the state has the resources to even begin looking into this.
As a privacy nut I have always wanted to keep cash but I'm starting to second guess myself.
[+] [-] chrisbrandow|2 years ago|reply
People don’t naturally feel as much allegiance to others who look and sound different. It takes time to overcome that.
[+] [-] letrowekwel|2 years ago|reply
Places like Sweden will have it even worse than the US, because migrants need to learn a fully new language to fully integrate, while most migrants to the US have at least some English skills to begin with.
[+] [-] yencabulator|2 years ago|reply
Deaths from assault by firearm per million
Sweden, 2020: about 5.5 (from the bar chart)
USA, 2021: 43
(https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-... 48,830 deaths, 43% of those are homicides, population of 331.9 million)
[+] [-] fintechie|2 years ago|reply
Legal immigration is of course fine and necessary, as long as the state and socials systems can assimilate it... (Japan is a good example). But articles like this show concerning data points in western countries with uncontrolled migratory policies.
[+] [-] arp242|2 years ago|reply
Looking at [1], murder rate in Slovakia is comparable, and Hungary only slightly lower. Sweden isn't even near the top murder rate in the EU, and a number of other countries which accepted a large number of refugees have lower murder rates than Sweden.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
[+] [-] HHC-Hunter|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] injeolmi_love|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flohofwoe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dah00n|2 years ago|reply
How do you allow something legally that is illegal? If you allow it, it is not illegal. If you don't, you haven't allowed it.
[+] [-] m000|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://greekreporter.com/2023/10/03/greek-man-gang-war-swed...
[+] [-] hakdbha|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tom_|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] apienx|2 years ago|reply
Swedish culture still values multiculturalism. And, during my 20 years there, I was never able to convince anyone about the dangers of tolerating intolerance.
When you check demographics’ stats, you realise that these issues will be compounded in the future. It makes me sad.
[+] [-] jongjong|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asylteltine|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m000|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alienicecream|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kurthr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] romafirst3|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seydor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosjobim|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inglor_cz|2 years ago|reply
Explosions tend to be vastly less precise than shootings and unintended victims are more of a rule than an exception.
[+] [-] slaw|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Throwfi44|2 years ago|reply
Add explosives, hand grenades, kidnapping...
US does not have a big problem with organized crime!
[+] [-] mrkeen|2 years ago|reply
I just took the train into the city, had a burger & beer, and soon I'll train back home. I have zero worries about my safety.
Anyway, the Right party pulled the balance of power from the Left and formed a centre/right coalition more than a year ago, because of all the bad people coming here and doing bad things. Weren't they going to fix this?
[+] [-] lm28469|2 years ago|reply
That's also the life of millions in Ukraine right now so your anecdote doesn't mean much
Looking at the statistics and historical trends paint another picture, of course this isn't El Salvador, but it doesn't mean it's going in the right direction
[+] [-] Levitz|2 years ago|reply
While I do think problems are way overblown, I don't know if you realize, these issues take generations to fix. If there is one legitimate scary bit about immigration is that it has VERY long-reaching consequences. You can deport someone who just got there, you can't deport someone's grandkid, he has nowhere to return to.
[+] [-] LudwigNagasena|2 years ago|reply
My grandma smoked since she was a teenager and she is still alive and has no cancer. I guess all tobacco research is just fear-mongering.
> Weren't they going to fix this?
Were they? I’ve read a summary of the Moderate Party manifesto (https://archive.is/v6IYb) and, well, it looked pretty moderate. It looks like those measures will simply prevent exacerbation of the problems rather than solve them in under a year. It’s not like they did something similar to the Salvadoran gang crackdown.
[+] [-] jacquesm|2 years ago|reply
Ask the Scottish how they feel about Sweden exporting its culture a while ago.
[+] [-] jmprspret|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|2 years ago|reply
I know rehabilitation is different in Europe than the US, but there are likely resource constraints for attempting to do so at scale looking at trailing immigration volume.
[+] [-] arthur_sav|2 years ago|reply
Ah nice. I guess there's no problem then.
[+] [-] mupuff1234|2 years ago|reply
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