Sweden set to rent cells in Estonian jails as it runs out of room for its prisoners | Sweden

Sweden is moving away from criminal rehabilitation in favor of the US -style mass imprisonment, and experts are preparing for rent places in Estonia prisons to help the country’s rapidly expanding prison population.

Moving from prison to external resources is one of the series of policies aiming to transform the Swedish criminal justice system, which warns the extreme crowd while struggling to combat the gang violence of the central-health government.

The Ministry of Justice said he instructed the Ministry of Justice last week Criminalvården (Sweden Prison and Probation Service) Make the necessary preparations for the Estonian plan.

Within the scope of an agreement signed by Stockholm and Tallinn in June, up to 600 prisons in the Baltic country will be presented.

According to a recent criminalvården report, Sweden’s prison population – in the most extreme scenario – may grow from 7,800 to 2034 to the right by the right to 41,000 due to more punishing policies.

Observer says it represents a significant change for a country that is proud of prison policies focusing on rehabilitation and re -integration for decades.

Sweden did not cope with an increase in the numbers sentenced to prison while struggling with an unprecedented wave of violence brought by the government gang crime.

Prison Service Chief Joakim Righammar said that Sweden’s prisons were an extremely crowded “crisis”.

The number of children in prison for a long time is particularly striking: in recent years, a change in the approach has led to a 10 -year imprisonment of children under the age of 15.

The government, which depends on the support of the far -right Swedish democrats, is now considering the proposal to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 for serious crimes.

Main Opposition Party, Central Left Social Democrats, they would support Such a move. The Swedish democrats wanted the age to be reduced to 13.

Next year, the government plans to introduce youth prisons instead of existing secure youth care houses, where young criminals are generally placed and the maximum punishment is four years.

Justice Minister Gunnar Stömmer said that the agreement with Estonia was “an important step to relieve the Swedish prison and probation service”.

“Careful preparations are required for the work in practice. It is very important that everything from security and legal certainty to cooperation with Estonian authorities is ready to work properly when the agreement enters into force.”

However, others said the numbers were a decrease in the ocean compared to what is needed. “If we look at being 40,000 prisoners, then 600 cells won’t do much,” he said.

Lönnqvist He said that Sweden had abandoned his belief in rehabilitation and focuses more on punishing and “locking people”. The government and the social democrats were moving to the far right.

“It is quite frightening that it takes place without much discussion around everything,” he said. “As we have seen in the United States, we look at mass imprisonment and we know that it does not work. We know that this is the opposite: it will worse.”

“A humane rational approach to the concept of stability and crime policy went in Sweden at this point.”

Olle Jonasson, who spent time with children under the age of 15, who were suspected of serious crimes, including murder, spent time with young children until the age of 15, said that politicians focused on punishing vulnerable people rather than rehabilitation.

While most of the children he sees are not “punishment identity”, but the gangs are used as “disposable objects ,, many of those who ordered violence escape from the penalty abroad.

Orum I’m not saying they should go without the result, of course they have done these serious crimes, so they should be treated, ”he said.

“But instead of helping them find a new chance, we have to lose this’ punishment”. “

The society added, “He’s chewing the weakest connection,” he added.

Suggestion to send prisoners to Estonia – 300 miles away, opposite the Black Sea – still need to be approved by the parliaments of both countries, but the Swedish Ministry of Justice expects the agreement to come into force until the summer of 2026.

The Ministry of Justice denies that it has moved away from mass imprisoned and rehabilitation and refers to its work on preventing.