Immigration and crime: Sweden

Worrying crime trends in the land of Pippi Longstocking

This is part of a series. See also:

• Immigration and crime: Denmark

• Sweden’s immigration taboo

---

Introduction

Sweden is a very safe country by global standards. In 2021, Sweden had a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000. For comparison, the global homicide rate in 2021 has been estimated to be approximately 5.8 (UNODC).

Yet serious gang crime in Sweden has increasingly become a concern over the past two or three decades. Street-gang violence has grown, a lot of it occurring in open drug markets in vulnerable neighborhoods in Swedish cities (Rostami, 2017; Gerell et al., 2021). Sweden is the only European country that has seen a continuous increase in firearm homicides against men and young adults since 2005, and this firearm homicide rate is now very high by European standards (Selin et al., 2024). Not only that, Sweden has seen a worrying increase in hand grenade detonations (Sturup et al., 2020). Very recently, these developments have also started to bleed into the neighboring country of Denmark, where organized criminals cross the Øresund bridge and commit serious crime. A “scary phenomenon”, says the Danish Minister of Justice.

Sweden also has one of the highest rates of reported rapes in the world — a rate that has greatly increased since the early 2000s (UNODC). This statistic, however, should be interpreted with far more caution. Comparisons of crime rates across time and place are subject to serious challenges, and this is especially true for a crime like rape. Yet victimization surveys also suggest an increase in the victimization rate of sexual offenses over the last decade.

The number of immigrants in Sweden have greatly increased over the last few decades. Between 2002 and 2023, the share of the Swedish population that was either foreign-born or had at least one foreign-born parent increased from 21% to 35% (SCB). This has led to a natural question whether immigration has contributed to the worrying crime trends in the country. As we will see, data confirms this suspicion. The police have also spoken openly about the challenges arising from gang activity related to the immigrant influx. As a consequence, the public attitude about immigration and crime has shifted.

This attitudal change was reflected in the outcome of the 2022 Swedish election. The winning coalition ran on a tougher-on-crime and stricter-on-immigration platform. Now in 2024, Sweden’s borders are relatively closed. Projections indicate that in this year, Sweden will receive the lowest number of asylum seekers since 1997. The number of residence permits have also greatly decreased. For the first time in 50 years, Sweden is now experiencing net emigration (i.e., more leave than arrive).¹

In this piece, we will look at the data summarizing the relevant facts regarding immigration and crime in Sweden. This includes historical data, recent data, crime rates by offense type, and crime rates by regional origin. Lastly we will discuss the possible causes of observed crime disparities.

Evidence regarding immigration and crime in Sweden