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Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

theguardian.com

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Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#51

Post by Svip »

mjn wrote: post #32
mnsc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That question mark is not needed. Sverigedemokraterna is very much in the same vein as the Danish People's Party and currently rates at about 10% in opinion surveys. They haven't changed the Overton Window very much since all other parties have a pretty solid front of not supporting Sverigedemokraterna but they most certainly have shifted the window a bit to the right.

I think they're a bit different from Dansk Folkeparti (DF), mostly in having considerably more questionable roots, which I would guess doesn't help their acceptance in the party mainstream. They have made an effort to clean up their image in the past few years, expelling a number of the extreme-right elements, but the party's roots in the far-right scene makes them a bit anathema to respectable society. The origins o…

I think Sverigedemokraterna's support arise from the fact that the issue of immigration is generally seen as taboo in public Swedish debate, so the political parties at best avoid it. It also makes sense for this reason, that Sweden has a far more hardcore and aggressive extreme right scene than Denmark has (even if not more hardcore or aggressive, it is a lot larger).

Because in Denmark, immigration can be part of public debate without being shunned, while in Sweden, it's hard to get any sort of ground in this debate without being labelled a racist.

So now, some of them are trying to be more 'reasonable' about it with the party Sverigedemokraterna. I assume because they haven't made any progress publicly in Sweden by just being seen as extremists. And more and more figures are beginning to tell Swedes that immigration is not an issue you can ignore, thus Sverigedemokraterna's support is rising, because it's the only party that wants to talk about it.

But I am confident, that most of its votes are 'protest votes', to get the other parties to talk about it.

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#52

Post by chx »

> the five countries with the highest prison population are the US, China, Russia, Brazil and India.

Blimey, who'd have thought the countries with some of the highest population will have the most inmates. Then it continues with the per capita numbers which are a much better comparison but conveniently leaves out the per capita number for Sweden which according to the numbers in the articles is around 50 -- and India is 30! Not a nice/relevant comparison.

According to Wikipedia, apparently based on the same list just at a different rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat... India is fact one of the lowest per capita.

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#53

Post by mjn »

berrypicker wrote: post #40
Ygg2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, crime is present in highly dense, poor areas, color me surprised. /sarc Crime is increasing because the society can't integrate them fast enough. It's literally same deal before abortions were an option. More people, less resource on a local level, leads to crime growing. This has nothing to do with the minorities, but how they are being handled.

Most immigrants come to Sweden for a better quality of life, and they get it: the government gives them housing, social services, education, money etc. Any place in Sweden, even these 'highly dense, poor areas' you're talking about, are better than where most immigrants originate. Yet you blame the rest of society for not 'integrating' them better? I also hate this constant attributing of violent crime to poverty. Th…

> I also hate this constant attributing of violent crime to poverty.

This seems like an empirical question, not something to like or hate. Does poverty drive crime? Is reducing poverty effective in reducing crime? If yes, then I would say that is a good place for policies to focus.

I know more about Denmark (where I live) than Sweden, but here poor areas do seem to be by far the source of most crime, and that applies to both immigrants and non-immigrants who live there. The social problems in the different communities manifest somewhat differently, but both native & immigrant communities in the "bad" parts of Copenhagen have social problems. The biggest difference seems to just be that they join different gangs: ethnic Danes in areas with high degrees of social problems get involved in mainly-Danish biker gangs, while immigrants with social problems get involved in mainly-immigrant gangs. A large feature of Copenhagen crime in recent years has been the Danish and immigrant gangs fighting for control of the drug market. (Prior to that, the Danish gangs fought among themselves for it, so immigrants didn't start this particular problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Nordic_Biker_War)

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#54

Post by darkbot »

angularly wrote: post #38
draugadrotten wrote: post #3

Beware of the political spin! Note that while the number of inmates plummets, the number of crimes committed is higher than ever. This is a failure of the police and the justice system and not a success story. Nearly 95 percent of violent crimes and robberies committed in Sweden go unsolved , and an individual police officer solves an average of three crimes per year. http://www.thelocal.se/20081103/15412

Yeah I must admit the op article seems to be pure political spin. You can read in the official statistics that number of crimes have absolutely exploded in Sweden since 1975: http://www.d-intl.com/2013/11/08/dramatisk-okning-av-valdsbr... It seems to me they should in fact rapidly increase the numbe of prisons, if they want to protect people.

d-intl.com is run by a bunch of paranoid and outright crazy neo-fascist. It's extremely racist and have close ties to the Norwegian terrorist Ander Bering Breivik as well as to the violent English Defence League(EDL). It's not by any means a decent source for anything.

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#55

Post by maxerickson »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #26
draugadrotten wrote: post #3

Beware of the political spin! Note that while the number of inmates plummets, the number of crimes committed is higher than ever. This is a failure of the police and the justice system and not a success story. Nearly 95 percent of violent crimes and robberies committed in Sweden go unsolved , and an individual police officer solves an average of three crimes per year. http://www.thelocal.se/20081103/15412

Talking of political spin, you can usually tell when someone is trying to twist facts to make them seem more interesting. They combine things that don't really go together and put the worst one first e.g. "violent crimes and robberies". You might think, no they're talking about "violent crimes" and "violent robberies" yet the police chief is quoted as saying: " When it comes to theft, there are no witnesses, and vict…

In the US, theft and robbery are classified separately. One of the distinguishing characteristics is that robbery generally involves force or the threat of force to take something.

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#56

Post by wjk »

angularly wrote: post #38
draugadrotten wrote: post #3

Beware of the political spin! Note that while the number of inmates plummets, the number of crimes committed is higher than ever. This is a failure of the police and the justice system and not a success story. Nearly 95 percent of violent crimes and robberies committed in Sweden go unsolved , and an individual police officer solves an average of three crimes per year. http://www.thelocal.se/20081103/15412

Yeah I must admit the op article seems to be pure political spin. You can read in the official statistics that number of crimes have absolutely exploded in Sweden since 1975: http://www.d-intl.com/2013/11/08/dramatisk-okning-av-valdsbr... It seems to me they should in fact rapidly increase the numbe of prisons, if they want to protect people.

Just because crime is up doesnt mean crimes that you go for prison for are up. Especially since they have become way more lenient with the sentences the past years.

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#57

Post by darkbot »

Svip wrote: post #51
mjn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're a bit different from Dansk Folkeparti (DF), mostly in having considerably more questionable roots, which I would guess doesn't help their acceptance in the party mainstream. They have made an effort to clean up their image in the past few years, expelling a number of the extreme-right elements, but the party's roots in the far-right scene makes them a bit anathema to respectable society. The origins o…

I think Sverigedemokraterna's support arise from the fact that the issue of immigration is generally seen as taboo in public Swedish debate, so the political parties at best avoid it. It also makes sense for this reason, that Sweden has a far more hardcore and aggressive extreme right scene than Denmark has (even if not more hardcore or aggressive, it is a lot larger). Because in Denmark, immigration can be part of p…

That's not true. There is a vivid debate around immigration and asylum issues in both old fashioned- and social media.

Sverigedemokraterna is big because a large slew of the Swedish population is slanting toward racism and are prone to accept simple "solutions".

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#58

Post by pathy »

berrypicker wrote: post #45
andyroid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing statistics does not make you a racist. Providing false claims such as "crime is increasing relatively fast" (reported crimes decreased by 1% in 2012 compared to the year before) while trying to attribute this to immigrant groups does. As for statistics, people with little to no income are also "overrepresented" in crime. Who would have guessed.

Like somebody else said in the thread, look at crimes like homicide and theft, whose definition are uncontroversial. Crime is rising.

>År 2012 konstaterades 68 fall av dödligt våld i Sverige, vilket är en minskning jämfört med år 2011, då 81 fall konstaterades. Nivån för 2012 är den lägsta noteringen under de senaste tio åren.

>Antalet fall av dödligt våld uppvisar relativt stora upp- och nedgångar mellan olika år och har den senaste tioårsperioden fluktuerat mellan 68 och 107 fall årligen.

>I ett längre perspektiv uppvisar det dödliga våldet en nedåtgående utveckling.

Source: http://www.bra.se/bra/brott--statistik/mord-och-drap.html

Sorry for the Swedish but basically: Long term the deadly violence has had a downwards trend.

Where are your statistics that they are rising?

Re: Sweden closes four prisons as number of inmates plummets

#59

Post by angularly »

darkbot wrote: post #54
angularly wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I must admit the op article seems to be pure political spin. You can read in the official statistics that number of crimes have absolutely exploded in Sweden since 1975: http://www.d-intl.com/2013/11/08/dramatisk-okning-av-valdsbr... It seems to me they should in fact rapidly increase the numbe of prisons, if they want to protect people.

d-intl.com is run by a bunch of paranoid and outright crazy neo-fascist. It's extremely racist and have close ties to the Norwegian terrorist Ander Bering Breivik as well as to the violent English Defence League(EDL). It's not by any means a decent source for anything.

Well thats just like your opinion, and not true at all.

The problem in Sweden is the same as in Denmark only worse. The media is controlled by leftists to a degree that almost no rightwing views are ever presented.

In Denmark 80% of journalists vote to the left, and we only have one or two papers who present the 55% of the population who vote on the right wing. The same is true in Sweden only worse.

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