[draugadrotten]

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

[Xylakant]

Beware of the political spin!

The article cited is from 2008 and so nearly five years outdated. The rise has stalled and the trend has been reversing with a slight decline of 1% in 2012 [1]. The biggest problem I see is that the the article glosses over the reasons for such a change. There are multiple reasons why crime statistics change, some merely methodological, but chief among them are two factors:

* Changes in criminal law, classifying new kinds of behavior as a crime or decriminalizing some behavior. (Hello Marihuana legalization!)

* Willingness to report a crime. What used to be a run in among adolescents is nowadays often reported as a violent crime. Any kind of rape or sexual molestation used to be such a stigma on the victim that they were (and still often are) not reported.

Same goes for the rate of solved crimes: A figure of "6%" just glosses over the details. It seems low, but what's more interesting is which crimes get solved. Bike theft has a notoriously low rate of solving the crime (1%) [2] and is very common in some regions, skewing statistics. Same for petty theft. Drug abuse is often reported as a crime. There's no chance to ever solving such crimes on a significant level. Also, how does "6%" compare to the years before? Better? Same? Less?

So be weary when reading and citing those articles. Usually, if only one figure gets cited, you're being mislead.

[1] http://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statisti... [2] http://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statisti...

[draugadrotten]

I love your source.

>The rise has stalled and the trend has been reversing with a slight decline of 1% in 2012 [1].

From your source: "Since 2003, the number of reported offences has increased by approximately 147,000 (+12%). Since 1975, the trend in the total number of reported offences has been characterised by a continuous increase."

That a 1% decrease in the statistics of a single year represent any significant change in the trend since 1975 remains to be seen. I'm very skeptical but I will be very happy if it turns out to be true.

[Xylakant]

You're glossing over my main point: Picking a single number without context or interpretation from a statistic is devoid of any meaning.

The statistic measures "reported crimes" as a total value, not even per capita. That's a very long shot from "committed crimes". It's really just only what people report, if it's a crime or not. The number of reported crimes is most likely below the number of actual crimes for most crimes. It's a statistic which must be regarded with big caution. It's an indicator and as such has a value, but without context and analysis the number itself is basically meaningless. Take for example "fraud with help of internet" - that's a crime that basically didn't exist in 2003. It probably wasn't codified in law until much later and it's one of the fastest growing categories. Such changes skew the statistics, context is important. Even the reverse in trend may be due to external factors such as less people reporting drug abuse as a crime.

[draugadrotten]

I agree that crime statistics are highly context sensitive and must be handled with caution. Sweden's rape statistics are a good example. Sweden has more rapes per capita than most countries, it's even the second highest in the world. However, that's because Sweden's definition of rape is including so much more than any other country. Ask Julian Assange about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#Sweden

That new crimes are codified in law, such as "internet fraud", and is one of the fastest growing seems to causing more crimes, not fewer. It doesn't invalidate the comparison between years for all crimes, and unless you want to argue that newly codified crimes are less serious than old ones, I can't really see a problem with new laws being included in statistics, too.

I'd like to conclude saying that I appreciate your posts on this subject and have read them with interest.

[idupree]

Wikipedia's citation in that section[1] says that Swedes are more likely to report crimes, but have a similar actual amount of crimes.

"Sweden stands out within the entire area of crimes against the person in particular, because the registration of crime is more extensive than in the majority of other countries in Europe. This forms the background to, for example, the fact that ten times as many cases of assault are registered in Sweden as in Greece."

"But in the victim survey that exists that permits basic comparison between levels of exposure to sex crimes in ten European countries, Sweden does not top the list, as in the reporting statistics. Instead, Sweden is around the average mark, which is also the case for assaults and threats, despite the fact that compared to other countries, we have many such crimes reported. However, the fact that we are not any worse than many other countries does not mean that the situation is good. If any rape is committed, the level is too high."

[1] http://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/news-from-bra/arch...

[Xylakant]

That new crimes are codified in law, such as "internet fraud", and is one of the fastest growing seems to causing more crimes, not fewer. It doesn't invalidate the comparison between years for all crimes, and unless you want to argue that newly codified crimes are less serious than old ones,

There is no problem per se in including newly codified crimes in statistics. It's also perfectly fine that that this causes a rise in those statistics. It still compels caution when reading those statistics:

Let's best take a totally contrived example: Beginning with the first of December, eating Surströmming is forbidden due to new environmental protection laws. This will cause a sudden spike in the crime statistics because once acceptable behavior is now outlawed. It also causes the police to suddenly solve a higher percentage of crimes since the perpetrators are easily identifiable by their smell. Did the world get better? Worse? The statistic just tells us a naked number.

Something similar happens with fraud with help of the internet and probably more with illegal access to computer systems: People were doing it before, but it never showed up in the statistics since even though it was still as bad of a behavior as it is now, it was not illegal since there was no appropriate law.

Figures for rape and sexual molestation are rising? What does that mean? More people getting raped? Or does it mean that even though less people are raped, a higher percentage are in the position to report it? The definition of rape has - rightfully - been broadened in the last decade. In germany, rape in a marriage was only codified as "rape" in 1997 (!) (in words: nineteen nintyseven). That certainly causes a rise in the relevant statistics, but it doesn't mean that more women are raped - it just means that visibility has increased. (which, by the way, is a good thing in itself)

That's what I mean by "context matters". You can't derive any meaning from the naked numbers. In the extreme case, a rise in crime stats may "just" mean that the society decided to outlaw some specific behavior. In reality it's probably a mixed bag of a lot of reasons.

EDIT: Formatting for the quote.

[berntb]

>>However, [the statistics are the 2nd highest on the planet] because Sweden's definition of rape is including so much more than any other country.

I've seen that claim often, but never some real facts which compares data. You don't have any, either?

[hobbe80]

Between 2003 and 2013, the Swedish population grew by 7.8%, which should be taken into account when looking at absolute numbers of reported crimes.

[kzrdude]

> Hello Marihuana legalization

is it legal in Sweden?

[gnerd]

Very much the opposite. In Sweden, even alcohol is a controlled substance and you may recall pressure being put on NL for allowing foreign people to consume cannabis in coffee shops (mainly in Amsterdam), well that pressure was from Sweden who saw the practise as a way for Swedes to get around their laws by flying to Amsterdam for a weekend (although just across the border in Copenhagen, a Swede can buy cannabis at Christiana, it isn't legalized or officially decriminalized, but the police only enforce a few arrests every few years as long as there is no violence or other drugs, no such pressure was placed on Denmark).

It is a throwback to notions from the 19th century, puritanical christian Sweden where the notion was that Swedes have an 'addict gene'.

You can legally have sex with animals though, it isn't even seen as cruel, the thinking back in 1945 when bestiality was legalized with sodomy was why should an otherwise good man be plagued because he has sex with animals (or homosexual sex). Obviously this thinking wouldn't fly in other western nations as the concept of cruelty and consent are very different. I think they are in the process of changing this now, so maybe in a few years they will fall in line with other aspects of international policy as well.

[jeltz]

> It is a throwback to notions from the 19th century, puritanical christian Sweden where the notion was that Swedes have an 'addict gene'.

19th century Sweden was not "puritanical Christian". The ideas of absolute temperance entered through influences from the Anglo-Saxon world, local temperance organizations mostly advocated alcohol use in moderation.

I believe that the idea of Swedes being especially prone to addition also is something recent, but here I am out of my depth. I have not heard it used often by temperance activists and Christians either.

[dalke]

I agree that "puritanical" isn't appropriate for Swedish Lutheranism, but I suspect the previous poster was using "puritanical" more loosely, as a rough antonym to "hedonistic" and not as a specific religious movement or influence.

I'm not sure though about your statement "mostly advocated alcohol use in moderation."

There was the Swedish prohibition referendum in 1922. Just under 50% of the voters wanted an absolute prohibition on "rusdrycker". That includes spirits, wine, and strong beer. The referendum was "För eller mot införande av fullständigt rusdrycksförbud" - "for or against the introduction of the complete prohibition of intoxicating drinks."

(I'm uncertain how to translate 'rusdryck.' I think 'intoxicating drinks' is best, vs. "drinks with alcohol." A rusdryck is currently defined in Sweden (since 1944) as drinks with at least 2.25% alcohol by volume. I don't know what it meant in 1922. IOGT put it at 2% back in the late 1880.

For comparison, in the US the 1919 Volstead Act set the limit as 0.5%, while the 1933 Cullen-Harrison Act raised it to 3.2% by weight (=4% by volume), just a few months before the amendment overturning Prohibition. For that short time, US prohibition laws were less strict than what Sweden would have had.)

In any case, I don't think it's the same as saying that the temperance movements advocated for "alcohol use in moderation." Most of the temperance movements seem to have been for the ban, and relatively fewer temperance organizations (like the "Landsföreningen för folknykterhet utan förbud" - "National Association of Public Temperance Without Prohibition") against it.

As for the Christian influence, from what I can tell, while there were Christian organization in the early 1800s which advocated less alcohol use, it wasn't until the the "new" temperance movements of the late 1800s, with strong US influences, that people advocated for a complete ban. Some, like NGTO, were more specifically Christian than others. I think the modern IOGT-NTO is not Christian, though there are still Christian-based temperance movements in Sweden. As I recall, most people in the more religious area of Sweden voted for the ban, but that could also be an agriculture/small-town vs. industrial/big-city divide.

The modern temperance movement is, as you say, not the same as 100 years ago. IOGT-NTO advocates for reduced use of alcohol, and for the existence of alcohol-free places (like meeting halls). It does not advocate for the ban of alcohol.

[gnerd]

As the other poster mentioned, I was using puritanical to mean strict religious ideas and not the Puritan movement. You will notice I capitalised Sweden but not the word puritanical as it was not a proper noun.

[dalke]

"puritanical" is an adjective, not a noun. :)

I also noticed that you referred to an "addict gene" as a 19th century notion, but the term "gene" wasn't coined until the 20th century.

In any case, no I wasn't aware of a 19th century Sweden based on strict religious ideas. Could you tell me more? My understanding is that the state was working to suppress Pietism in the Lutheran church, and persist with rationalism.

Pietism and Puritanism are similar, and Pietism is a forerunner to the modern evangelical movement in the US, which is why I didn't think that 1800s Sweden had those same sorts of strict religious ideas about one's daily life.

Rather, there were strict religious laws, yes, but they were strict in asserting how Lutheranism was the official church and that there is no other church. Quoting Wikipedia:

In order to curb Pietism several Royal Decrees and Acts of Parliament were proclaimed in the 18th century, which forbid Swedish citizens to practice any religion besides mandatory Lutheran Sunday Mass attendance and daily family devotions. Without the presence of a Lutheran clergyman public religious gatherings were forbidden. It remained illegal until 1860 for Lutheran Swedes to convert to another confession or religion. From then, and unto 1951, it was legal to leave the Church of Sweden for the purpose of becoming a member of another officially recognised religious denomination.

I'm interested in Swedish history, though I don't know all that much about it, so I look forward to your explanation.

[Xylakant]

Don't thinks so, but I wanted to cite a real-world example of decriminalization that is actually happening in at least some jurisdictions on that planet. That was the first one that came to my mind. Others include

* decriminalization of same-sex intercourse (gay, lesbian).

* general decriminalization of drugs (think portugal)

[ZeroGravitas]

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 victims often don’t know when the crime occurred."

So unless these victims are so viciously beaten by muggers that they get amnesia it seems more likely to be non-violent thefts.

If the violent crimes are really that bad then why not present their stats alone?

[maxerickson]

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.

[jeltz]

Same for in Sweden.

[ZeroGravitas]

Wikipedia says robbery, assault and sexual assault ("contact crimes") together made up 12% of reported crimes in 2003 Sweden. Theft related were 53%.

The article claims that in 2007 Sweden "violent crimes and robberies make up about 75 percent of all crimes reported in Sweden."

I'd say they've conflated theft and robbery in that article, possibly a translation issue, possibly fear mongering.

(edit: and this is backed up by the link to the official stats given elsewhere in the thread by Xylakant which has robbery as less than 1% of reported crimes in 2012)

[vidarh]

That's particularly likely given the quote where the national police chief is quoted as talking about thefts.

[vidarh]

I find it amusing that you warn of the political spin, yet cite as facts and link to an article that cites a "study" done for a TV show with no specifics about methods used or classification criteria given.

Why should we assign any more trust to just those numbers?

[draugadrotten]

I presented an english-language article talking about the topic.

What I care about here is that the law enforcement should get better IRL. I don't care at all if you "trust" anything here, faceless HN user vidarh.I simply presented a fact for you to use or ignore.

There's quite a few recent articles about the abysmal Police work in Sweden, however they are in Swedish. Public service radio, just to pick one: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artik...

I'm sure you know how to use google to find more of the same. Have fun and please share the truth if you find it out there.

[vidarh]

I'm Norwegian, so the Swedish article is not a problem.

The Swedish article you linked presents a far more nuanced picture and gives even more reasons to question the other link you gave.

It does not say anything about the number of crimes committed, so we can't really used this one to look at that. But it does on the other give a number of possible explanations for why the percentage of "solved" crimes dropped, though notably the article only refers to a drop versus the same period the previous year - it says nothing about longer term trends.

However what it says is interesting:

* The number of particularly complicated crimes, such as IT related crimes, have risen, though it gives no numbers. This claim is so fuzzy that it doesn't really tell us much, unfortunately.

* The police have reduced their focus on traffic related crimes, which includes a lot of easy to solve crimes. E.g. frequent traffic-stops will "net" a lot of crimes that are instantly solved at the same time as you identify the crime. By catching people drunk driving, or driving too fast, for example. Whether or not this change is good or bad really depends on whether it coincides with more accidents etc. If it doesn't, then one might argue the police and legislative have been overzealous about this in the past.

* In terms of drug related crimes, enforcement has shifted from users to dealers. "Solving" drug crimes is much easier when it involves going around and hassling vulnerable, highly visible addicts - where again the crime will be registered mainly if it is solved at the same time, by catching someone with drugs, - vs. tracking down dealers. Some of us would say this shift is distinctly positive even though it makes the numbers look worse.

* At the same time the article points out that numbers for some crimes that have a much more direct effect on the general public, such robberies of homes and, as a follow on, resale of stolen property, have improved.

So many of the crimes they have de-emphasised which previously scored them many easily solved crimes, are victim-less crimes or have no direct victims, and it is not clear that the reduction in solved crimes there is a problem at all. The shift in enforcement especially when it comes to drugs is in line with international shifts in attitudes. The freed up resources have seemingly been funnelled into crimes that have more serious effects on the general public, but which require more resources - such as the effort to identify key individuals tied to break-ins etc. and following them up intensively. This has been done specifically in response to policy decisions by the government, that have asked for a focus on these types of more complex crimes, and so gives even less reason to justify any claim about "abysmal Police work".

No part of the article supports any kind of idea of a crisis in the Swedish police's ability to solve crimes, nor any idea of massively rising crime. It doesn't disprove it either - it is largely orthogonal to the original claims.

I wish I had time to dig around, but I don't. I do find it interesting that you chose this article to illustrate, though, if there's "quite a few recent articles about the abysmal Police work in Sweden", as it doesn't really address the issues.

[draugadrotten]

> No part of the article supports any kind of idea of a crisis in the Swedish police's ability to solve crimes

I can't be reading the same article as you, but I'll leave it at that.

Since you claim to read Swedish, try this google search for Swedish police solves fewer crimes: https://www.google.se/#q=svensk+polis+l%C3%B6ser+f%C3%B6rre+...

I paraphrase the first few hits:

- Despite more money, fewer crimes a solved (SVT.SE) - The police solves fewer crimes despite new billions (DN.SE) - Police solves fewer crimes than ever (Aftonbladet) - Police increasingly worse at solving crimes (Expressen) - Finnish police solves 80% - Swedish solves 17% (Exponerat) - Swedish police solves even fewer crimes (HBL.FI)

and the list goes on.

I can't be reading the same internet as you, if you can't find quote a few recent articles about the abysmal police work in Sweden.

[Xylakant]

Since you already admitted that you liked my source I assume that you also read the introductory page which contains this enlightening paragraph at the top [1]:

Comparisons between countries that are based on their individual crime statistics require caution since such statistics are produced differently in different countries. Criminal statistics do not provide a simple reflection of the level of crime in a given country.

Criminal statistics are influenced by both legal and statistical factors, and by the extent to which crime is reported and registered. These factors can vary from one country to another. There are no international standards for how crime statistics should be produced and presented and this makes international comparisons difficult.

The comparison with Finnland doesn't hold. Also the 17% you quote directly contradicts the 6% in your earlier article, at least one of the two can't be right.

Then again, the GP doesn't contradict the assertion that the overall ratio is now lower than a year ago. You're nit refuting his point. His argument is that the police now concentrates less on easily solvable crimes that have little effect on the general population but rather on more difficult crimes with significant effect on the general population - which in my book is a good thing. Tying police success or failure to a statistic that measures something only tangentially related is a mistake, albeit a common one, even in high profile newspapers. (cue rant about journalism today).

http://www.bra.se/bra/bra-in-english/home/crime-and-statisti...

[berntb]

Comparisons with Sweden is probably hard.

I seriously think of Swedish media as something out of Animal Farm these days. Or 1984.

I got vertigo a month or so ago, when the editor of DN (largest non-tabloid, or so they claim) discuss how good news are never big news, but bad news are. About the same time I saw in Forskning & Framsteg that the group rape statistics has increased fourfold since the 1990s. That had not been discussed at all in the media.

Lots of other examples exists.

[csmuk]

Sounds like Nottingham in the UK's bullshit crime statistics.

"Arrests fallen! Crime rates lower than ever!"

Actually people just do it vigilante style or don't bother reporting it because the police are fucking useless.

I mean I caught a person breaking into my car, had photos of the person doing it, the car was covered in finger prints, they arrived in another stolen car with plates that were photographed, left their tools in the car when disturbed and the police said they found "no evidence".

Was resolved for a small fee by a private "individual" who knew who they were.

[draugadrotten]

To be fair, the supreme court have also taken on itself to change the sentencing. The lack of inmates could be because of a change in 2010. [Edit: the effects of which, are seen now]

Most inmates serving 10+ years in Swedish prisons are drug related cases.

In 2010, the Swedish supreme court decided to dramatically change the policy regarding punishment for drug trafficking. What was previously a 14-year prison sentence suddenly became a 4 year crime. [Update: Prisoners sentenced in 2010 would previosly have been staying in prison for 10+ years but after the change they are now released in 2013 for good behaviour.]

http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev...

[gnerd]

Also important to note is in Sweden there is no drug scheduling system like there would be in the Anglo countries. If one were to sell or move a lot of cannabis, it would be the same as selling or moving a lot or heroin or crystal meth.

For small amounts of anything, there are no custodial sentences but the fine will be about half of your monthly salary (or approximately £50 if you have no job).

I have heard anecdotal cases of houses/flats being raided on nothing more than simple suspicion because someone seemed sleepy or had red eyes.

[pimeys]

Also happens in Finland. If the police catches you smoking a joint in a park, they will raid your house in most cases. There must be something for them to find, to protect you and to protect the society...

[atlantic]

I had a friend in Belgium who was raped in the street one evening by three young men. The police did not take much interest. There was no medical examination done. They said they would call her back to look at some pictures but they never did.

I've fought off muggers several times over the years. I've never bothered to call the police, especially as the actions taken in self-defence might themselves constitute a crime.

Despite all the hype in the cinema, my general impression is that policemen are basically bureaucrats carrying guns, not too different from teachers or bus drivers.

[agumonkey]

I know it's quite a jump, but it reminds me of the video of the baby being run on by a car while nobody cared. Some people said being involved could be misinterpreted by the police causing you to be jailed or worse.

[berntb]

I've lived in Sweden and Finland. That sounded more like Sweden. In Finland the police is trusted and appreciated. Among the most trusted civic functions in interviews, afaik.

[tluyben2]

That sounds kind of like the EU countries I've lived in / been to; unless the police is standing next to the crime happening nothing much happens. And that is not just (just, because it is of course) populist talk; it happens a lot. People point out the crime, have images, videos on their phones and the police makes a nice report; you'll never hear about it again.

I had it in Spain. I understand the vigilante crap even if you didn't get hurt; you feel so powerless sitting at the police giving them pics, fingerprints, number plate and make of the getaway car while they are just nodding writing all down and putting it in a drawer knowing they won't do anything.

[IanCal]

As a counter point, I was mugged a couple of years back, and reported it after blocking my phone, etc. expecting a "Well there's not much we can do".

The police arrived within 10 minutes and took a statement. Since I'd seen one of the guys beforehand throwing a beer can at a car, they drove me back to that spot and we found the can. They got DNA from it and found out who it was, caught them and they were found guilty (they also picked me up & dropped me off when I needed to do a video lineup).

I then had victim support offer counselling & general contact and was updated with how things were going by post.

They were absolutely excellent as far as I'm concerned, particularly for a fairly minor crime (I was threatened but not actually hit) in a major city (Manchester in the UK, specifically Salford at the time).

[tluyben2]

Good to hear it can be different! I understand they cannot do this kind of thing every time, but at least learn some bedside manners and comfort the victim. I mean; they see muggings etc every day, but making me feel it's just normal and no-one cares is the bad thing EVEN if they don't do anything. If they actually get DNA/prints and use them, that rocks.

[icebraining]

Here in Portugal, my brother left his cellphone unattended and someone took it. We filled a claim with the cops (mostly for insurance purposes) and they got it back after a month or so, without so much as a description of the person who took it (I believe they got an address from the carrier).

Of course, this is just anecdotal.

[forktheif]

Crime rates are lower than they've been in a long time. And the reason we know they are, is the crime survey. The crime survey telephones a bunch of random people and asks them if they've been a victim of crime in the past 12 months.

The number of people reporting they're a victim of crime has been dropping since the late 90s.

[cones688]

Did you raise this with the IPCC[0]?

[0]http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/

[csmuk]

No - that's purely a form of idealism.

At best you'll get an apology from the police which isn't worth the effort.

[anon1385]

Additionally, don't make a complaint about the police unless you fully understand what you are getting yourself into. There is a reasonable chance that they will harass you and your family until they can find some reason to arrest you (or they may just arrest you for no reason).

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/11/police-vendetta-la...

A defence solicitor who was awarded £550,000 in damages from a police force after he was wrongly arrested says officers mounted a vendetta against him after one of his clients was acquitted.

James Watson said Cleveland police officers spent three years pursuing him, costing millions of pounds, without finding any evidence against him, before admitting a series of mistakes.

[csmuk]

Yeah that's about right.

It's about the arrests, not the crimes.

[madaxe]

The police are there to:

- Do you for speeding.

- Protect the establishment.

- Threaten violence.

- Prop up the prison-industrial complex for the benefit of private corporations.

They are categorically not there to help you. They never have been. This is a misapprehension that has been around since the days of Peel. A police force is the state's visible threat of violence against its populace, in order to exact control and to keep the powerful powerful.

[marvin]

This is not how a democratic nation is supposed to work. So please don't hold up this characterization of the police as something which is inevitable. The democratic ideal is that the police have a national monopoly on the legal use of violence, and the use of this violence is dictated by the laws and the courts. This is how well-working democratic nations work, and it is indeed how the police force in my home country works.

That anything else can be said about the USA today (maybe also the UK?), is just a testament to the scale of the democratic problems you guys have. You are really deep into it, and it doesn't seem like you realize the extent of the problem.

[csmuk]

It is inevitable. Every society has descended into this so far, until there is a revolution.

Us people in the UK realise what is happening. At some point, the moment will occur when the state oversteps the mark on something and the shit will get flipped country-wide.

[madaxe]

Yup, just said the same as you. Hobbes and Hayek both anticipated this.

Revolution is the only way out.

[csmuk]

Thanks for posting this. Just the motivation I need to read The Road To Serfdom which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years.

[madaxe]

No, it isn't, but it appears to be the endgame of representative democracy. I'd suggest reading Hobbes' Leviathan, or perhaps Hayek's Road to Serfdom, if you haven't already, as both anticipated this exact malaise. The US and the UK are in the terminal stages of decline.

The representative democratic ideal is ultimately revealed to be a fiction, and the rule of law is a falsehood - for without a universally applied rule of law, there is no rule of law - just authoritarianism - and our rule of law is decidedly not universal, and never has been. One set of rules for us, one for them.

All representative democracy eventually declines under the same disease of creeping authoritarianism due to the inevitable desire of entrenched power structures and bureaucracies to self-sustain and expand. This should not be mistaken for malice, rather it's the inevitable output of a system optimised for self-preservation.

The only solution to my mind while maintaining a democratic ideal is either strict sortition, or direct democracy.

[marvin]

This doesn't make sense to me. Why hasn't my native Norway ended up in this spot? Claiming "it is inevitable" isn't a valid argument, projecting to unlikely-seeming future scenarios can be used to prove anything. Just because two big nations have ended up with a screwed-up political system doesn't prove that it is an inevitability.

[vidarh]

Try arguing with a Norwegian police officer. Even calmly. Odds of ending up in jail overnight are pretty high, though you might find one with a sense of humour now.

Norway is one of those countries where shouting insults at a police officer can be illegal where shouting those same insults at a random strangers would not be - there explicitly is one law for public officials and one for the rest.

The idea of public officials being above the rest is deeply embedded in the Norwegian system, and only started fading with the growth of the labour movement, and steady inclusion of the labour movement into the establishment starting with the first lasting Ap (labour party) government in 1935 onwards. Even then, Ap took up the baton (..), and wielded it against the groups to their own left, with extensive illegal political surveillance for decades.

The reason Norway is now as civilized as it is, is simple:

Norway eventually got filthy rich thanks to the oil. The average salary in Norway is about 70% above the average salary in the UK, for example, and the salary curve is far flatter.

We've had social democratic ministers from a party that used argue for revolution and was an early member of Komintern that are millionaires. A long range of our past "threats" to the establishment are now wealthy and firmly embedded in the establishment. The class struggle in Norway is largely "on hold", and the police is being wielded against immigrants instead.

[saraid216]

> I'd suggest reading Hobbes' Leviathan

WELP. Time to find ourselves a king.

[mrow84]

Could you please add a bit of explanation as to why you are so confident that this interpretation of the role of the police should be regarded as categorical fact?

Particularly in the case of UK, if your knowledge allows, given that we operate, at least in principle, an explicitly Peelian system of policing, in contrast to, for example, our European neighbours.

[vidarh]

Consider the UK police treatment of demonstrators. It's one of the most brutal in Western Europe, and in many countries the very idea of a practice like kettling brings out images of fascist dictatorships.

I'm Norwegian. In Norway, government officials are often found participating in May day demonstrations, and it's a public holiday. Imagine my shock the first May day I experienced after moving to the UK, with police lining up units on horseback with shields all around and slowly forcing demonstrators into a smaller and smaller space and keeping them their for hours.

How does that fit with Peelian principles to you? It's the kind of method that is pretty much designed to provoke violence and distrust.

[mrow84]

I too think that kettling is provocative and unnecessary. There is a balance that we have to strike as a society between, on the one hand, protection of property and freedom from violence, and on the other, freedom of speech and expression.

Personally, I would rather we allowed more of the latter at the (potential) expense of less of the former, perhaps with some civil compensation scheme for any who might be affected.

I also think that we should allow much more disruption than we currently do - that is often one of the ways protesters make themselves heard. If protests were allowed to make more of an impact then people might feel less inclined to cause trouble. Unfortunately any impact on the great economic machine is seen as almost taboo in some, rather influential, quarters, which makes moves in that direction less likely.

Another part of the puzzle is community leadership, whatever 'community' means in the particular context. The leadership doesn't need to be centralised, but if people don't engage with the police in situations like that then things can get out of control. Though again this is another area where I think the police are often at fault: following orders rather than engaging with people.

All that said, I don't agree with madaxe's statement: "(the police) are categorically not there to help you. They never have been.", and to be frank I don't see how your example shows that it is so.

[csmuk]

Agree entirely. I've learned this over the last few years.

[belorn]

Thats what happen when politics start to dictate priorities for the police.

A large group of the police force and prosecutor have been dedicated to hunt down file sharing. An other group is dedicated to maintain the national firewall. Others deal with hunting down all those 16 years old kids who "hacks" websites with DDOS.

This failure of the police and the justice system has very little to do with the police, and all to do with the current politics. Going for 5% to 10% solved cases in violent crimes and robberies would simply not be as political attractive as getting that 16 year old sentenced.

[bowlofpetunias]

In a functioning democracy, politics (i.e., the will of the people) should dictate the priorities for the police.

The corruption of said politics however is a different matter.

[Daniel_Newby]

In a functioning democracy, a parliament of whores A/B tests slogans and suits until they find a winning combination, then do whatever they want.

[ptr]

It's also what happens when bureaucracy takes over, putting the officers in the office most of the day.

[madaxe]

Politicians have always run the police - a police force is the government's visible threat of violence and method of control over the population. They're not there to protect you. They're there to protect the establishment.

[aet]

Next time you call the police. Please recite that little speech to the responding officer.

[madaxe]

"Responding officer"?

You mean, the phone drone whose job it is to go "sir, burglary is a civil matter, you will need to pursue it yourself"? Already have.

[patmcc]

If you live somewhere where the police literally tell you "burglary is a civil matter", you need to either start a revolution or move to a civilized country.

[jeltz]

> Research carried out by TV4’s Kalla Fakta (‘Cold Facts’) investigative news programme also revealed that violent crimes and robberies make up about 75 percent of all crimes reported in Sweden.

Those numbers are bullshit. If we look at Brå's statistics (http://www.bra.se/download/18.22a7170813a0d141d21800063138/1...) we see that:

  Total crimes 2012: 1156390
  Other+petty theft:  317869 27.5%
  Vandalism:          152345 13.2%
  Fraud:              129063 11.2%
  --
  Robbery:              9213  0.8%

[runarb]

Solved in such statistics may not mean what many thinks it means. Crimes where the perpetrator is known, but there is not enough evidence to take him to court are also often counted as solved.

At least here in Norway (neighbor country to Sweden), of the solved cases, about half was reported by the police itself. That normally mean that the police caught one in the act, or was them self the victim of the crime (the defendant resisted arrest, attacked or threatened a police officer etc.).

So if you are a victim of a crime, and no police officer witnesses it, it isn't very likely that the perpetrator get punished.

[angularly]

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.

[darkbot]

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.

[ZeroGravitas]

I read one of the articles via Google Translate. I have no previous experience with the site, but when the article claimed that the Swedish authorities don't care about rape particularly if the victim is Swedish then it seemed to me to be rather cliche right-wing scaremongering.

[angularly]

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.

[darkbot]

d-intl.com/Tryckfrihetssällskapet have on numerous occasions invited EDL (now former) leader Stephen "Tommy Robinson" Yaxley-Lennon to speech at rallies and meetings. That's a fact.

Your other statements are the typical Swedish right-wing conspiracy theory and slur that has no correlation with reality.

[angularly]

I dont know about Sweden, but in Denmark, it has been documentet many times, that about 80% of the journalists are left wing. Any way I got a bit off track here.

The subject at hand is that number of prisons are being reduced, while the number of crimes are exploding through the roof according to the official statistics. And that just seems a bit odd to say the least.

[jeltz]

> The same is true in Sweden only worse.

I would need a good source for this, since some newspapers in Sweden are rather right-wing with even some quite extreme libertarian columnists.

[draugadrotten]

Gothenburg University JMK surveys all all journalists in Sweden, and last time:

41 procent Miljöpartiet (green party, left-wing) 15 procent Vänsterpartiet (communist, extreme left)

Public Service Radio Sveriges Radio: 54 procent Miljöpartiet (green party, left-wing) Public Service TV Sveriges Television: 52 procent Miljöpartiet (green party, left-wing)

http://www.journalisten.se/nyheter/svenska-journalister-fore...

[darkbot]

Get your facts straight. Miljöpartiet is NOT considered left-wing, but centre-left, closer to the conservative-liberal block than the labour part.

Vänstetpartiet is a classical leftist party, there's nothing "extremist" about them.

[berntb]

If you asked Swedish police, you'd get much lower support for extreme right and pure racism than the national average. They probably aren't lower, but they know that these opinions aren't tolerated.

Swedish journalists are very much aware of that left extremist opinions is sensitive for their profession.

[wjk]

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.

[barry-cotter]

Is there an equivalent of the Danish People's Party or the beginnings of something similar? Someone to move the Overton window to the right?

[Svip]

Sverigedemokraterna?

[mnsc]

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.

[mjn]

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 of the party, and much of their '80s and early-'90s crowd, came out of the "subcultural right", movements like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevara_Sverige_Svenskt, norse-pride and white-power metal bands, the motorcycle club scene, etc.

When Mikael Jansson defected from the Center Party and took over Sweden Democrats in 1995 he began a purge of the openly extreme-right elements of the party in order to turn it into a respectable anti-immigration movement, but it didn't really solidify until the past few years. Even in recent years they have had a struggle to keep those types out of the party, for example their youth leader from 2007-2010 (Erik Almqvist) was embarrassingly videotaped singing white-power music at a retreat, and was finally forced out of the party earlier this year (weirdly, for someone who opposes immigration, he reportedly emigrated to Hungary after resigning).

DF by contrast has different origins, culturally rooted in something more like old-person Danish culture, rather than youth radical-right culture. They have a vaguely mythologized idea of 19th-century or early-20th-century Danish culture, as they imagine one's grandfather in a small town in Jutland might have lived. They generally therefore view the radical right-wing scene as negative, as equally a deviation from traditional quiet Danish values as immigrant crime is. This has let them keep those elements out of the party more credibly, because it's not only for image that they do it, but because their base actually culturally dislikes the far-right (especially anyone associated with the metal or biker scenes, who they see as culturally un-Danish).

Not that I myself would vote for DF (as an immigrant in Denmark they aren't out to make life easier for me), but I somewhat understand their appeal better; they are more of a rural "traditionalist values" party than a radical nationalist party. I find it harder to understand how SD would get similar support, unless people either don't realize their association with the far-right subculture, really believe that their transformation is completed, or are just lodging protest votes.

[Svip]

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.

[hobbe80]

This is a typical talking-point of Sverigedemokraterna - the claiming that discussions around immigration are taboo in Swedish media. The major issue with this is that it's not actually the lack discussions about immigration (immigration-related actions and decisions by the government and the municipalities are frequently debated in "mainstream media" and commented on by editorials) - it's simply the fact that the majority of the Swedish people don't agree with the policies suggested by Sverigedemokraterna. If you listen to someones arguments and rejects them, are you then avoiding the debate just because you have rejected the arguments?

I will say that the Swedish population has become more polarised over this question - both the number of people who claim "immigration is good for Sweden" and "immigration is bad for Sweden" has risen over the past 10 years, shrinking the middle. There is also a strong correlation between education and attitude to immigration (in 2011, 56% of the people who had only 9 years of education agreed that reducing the number of asylum seekers to Sweden is good while only 22% of those with a university-degree agreed with the statement). This might explain some of the frustrations showcased by the people supporting Sverigedemokraterna and other anti-immigration parties - they might simply lack the ability to debate in the way public debates are typically held and coherently express their ideas in a convincing way.

[darkbot]

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".

[mnsc]

Ok, I did not know this, thanks for a good explanation. But do you agree that they seem to point the blame stick in the same direction? That immigrants are the threat to the "true original culture"? Or are DF more truly critical towards subcultures that maybe are ethnically "right" but immoral on a traditional conservative value scale, eg. bikers/punks?

[mjn]

Oh I agree, there's no doubt they're both mainly riding a populist backlash against immigration, especially Muslim immigration. I think the parties themselves differ considerably more than the broader wave they're riding, which has more common origins.

DF really do seem to be critical towards "ethnic Danish" subcultures they view as deviant as well, especially in the past year. There's currently a bit of hand-wringing over biker clubhouses (residents don't like having one nearby), and they've been getting out in front of that populist backlash too, which plays well among their base for different but related reasons. It's sort of Public Enemy #2 in things that are ruining Denmark, from their perspective.

Here's a recent story (via Google Translate, note that "rocker castle" means "biker clubhouse"): http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

[mercurial]

As another immigrant in Denmark, thanks for the detailed explanations of the difference between the two.

[yesbabyyes]

I think they have opened the Overton window quite a bit. Today, established journalists and writers such as Herman Lindqvist, Ulf Nilsson, Stina Dabrowski, Elisabeth Höglund and Per Gudmundsson to name a few, use language and ideas borrowed from the far right -- things like referring to people as "ticking bombs" or arguing in a roundabout way that they (some with some of the biggest platforms in the country) can't state what they _actually_ think -- that they are somehow being repressed.

[mtgx]

Or maybe there are more laws criminalizing people that the police themselves thinks are ridiculous and they aren't executing them?