ON PATROL IN SWEDEN’S NO-GO ZONES AS ELECTION MIXES CRIME AND IMMIGRATION
Crime hotspots are maligned by populist parties but police don’t agree, reports Gareth Browne in Stockholm
“This is Fittja – welcome to one of our no-go-zones,” officer James Roberts chuckles as he steers his unmarked police car in an estate of stark, towering apartment blocks near the Swedish capital.
On a warm August morning, the police say they are confident of getting a grip on the booming crime rates that they say largely originate in places such as Fittja.
Despite the label, Mr Roberts shows little fear about policing what some describe as Scandinavia’s crime-stricken ghettos.
“They call them ‘no-gozones’. We call them ‘go-go zones’,” he says, quoting one of his senior officers.
The former British army soldier spent years patrolling some of the most sectarian neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland, but now he calls Sweden home.
But as his joke suggests, he rejects the idea of Sweden having real no-go zones, although he recalls occasions when he was forced to pull out of certain situations. “There were times when we didn’t have as many officers as we needed, but we’ve grown recently.”
There are more than 9,000 residents in Fittja’s tower blocks. Taken together they speak more than 100 languages and 57 per cent describe themselves as having a foreign background.
But for all their diversity, the estates are some of the most impoverished corners of Scandinavia. In some parts, unemployment is near 50 per cent.
Sweden is often regarded as a liberal utopia after decades of socialist government but it has been hit by high-profile gang crime that populists around the world have been quick to pounce on, given the country’s generosity to immigrants.
Last month Gothenburg, 450 kilometres south-west of Stockholm, hit world headlines after more than 100 cars were torched in a night of gang violence.
“Car burnings are usually a response to something we’ve done. It usually angers them,” says Mr Roberts, as he pulls his unmarked police vehicle into the shadow of a tower block.
Sweden’s crime rate is, he says, “more a question of equipment and legislation, than it is a political issue”.
One thing does concern him – the types of weapons the police are seizing. Mr Roberts tells of a house raid where some of his men found a Swedish military machine gun hidden in a washing machine.
“We are finding weapons that belong in a war zone,” he says.
Police records reveal a stash of AK47s found in a parking lot beneath one of the tower blocks.
“The real worry is if they get into the hands of someone who wants to do some real damage,” Mr Roberts says. The real damage he refers to is terrorism.
And the weapons are not just guns. There are “sawnoff shotguns, grenades too”, Mr Roberts says. “These are weapons you should be finding on a battlefield. The grenades, smuggled in from the former Yugoslavia, are exclusively the M75 model”.
Sweden is awash with these and gangsters are not afraid to use them. SVT, the state broadcaster, reported in 2015 that an M75 hand grenade on the streets of Sweden cost just €1 or €2 (Dh4.20 to Dh8.50), “less than an ice-cream cone”.
The number of incidents involving their use tripled in the eight years between 2008 and 2016, with Malmo worst hit. In one month in 2015, the city had a grenade attack a day.
Yet shocking as their use is, Mr Roberts is even more concerned the availability means they could fall into the hands of people more dangerous than drug dealers.
Gang attacks are often targeted, he says, and those involved are after a specific person. Terrorist attacks are a lot more indiscriminate.
“A machinegun or grenade in the hands of a gangster is one thing, but in the hands of someone who wants to commit terrorism – that’s a real issue,” he says. But, Mr Roberts points out: “Remember, these gangsters dislike terrorists as much as anyone else.”
In 2015, at the height of Europe’s migration crisis, Sweden took in 163,000 asylum seekers, the most per capita of any country in Europe.
Three years on, the populist Sweden Democrats are gaining support in the polls, vowing to cut immigration to an absolute minimum and deport any foreign-born person convicted of a crime.
With crime and immigration dominating the debate ahead of a general election on Sunday, it seems many people agree there are issues.
Many point to a recently unearthed statistic that more than half of Sweden’s convicted rapists were born abroad. In the eyes of the Sweden Democrats, and a growing number of Swedes, there is a clear link.
It was a link also made by US President Donald Trump early last year when he told an election rally “you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems they never thought possible”.
Yet there was one major problem with Mr Trump’s comments. He appeared to be referring to an incident that never took place.
Anders Sannerstedt, a political scientist at Lund University says gang shootings get media attention and parties “try to outdo each other – that’s where the Sweden Democrats’ strength lies”.
Mr Roberts disagrees that there is a link between those who arrived in 2015 and the rise in crime.
“The new immigration from Syria and Iraq, we don’t usually see them, they want to make a better life. It is those who have fallen into the poverty trap, that’s who we see repeatedly.”