Sweden mulls prison for young teens as violent crime rises

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https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-mulls-prison-for-young-teens-as-violent-crime-rises/a-77435410

Sweden’s parliament will vote on plans to hold 13-year-olds criminally responsible and, in serious cases, imprison them. Other European nations are also lowering age limits.

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The debate in regards to 13 year old gang members has gone into semantics in Sweden.
Everyone seem to agree that to break a kid free from a gang you have to physically remove the kid from the gang and then give it proper care with education and rehab.
The “hard on crime” parties call this prison, the others see it as an extension of social services and label it thereafter.

The result will be that the gangs recruit twelve year olds to shoot their rivals or blow up their rivals flat.

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Valid point. Do you have ideas for a better solution?

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Very little separates a 11 year old and a 10 year 350 day old. Hard age bars are not going to help because the ppl taking advantage of kids have no scruples.

Tbh, making children aware of the issue and social net (amnesty + support) for the vulnerable kids is the best course of action. Unfortunately social nets are not cheap and every year new targets are born

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Reactively I think removing the kids from the harmful environment and giving them a forced chance to rehab is the move. As long as we have kids in socio-economic situations where they see no future but to join the gangs it won’t get better but I don’t really have a fix.

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Have them watch all Dirty Harry movies on repeat so they learn that shooting gang members and criminals is cool 😎

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Prison is just school for criminals.

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They are not writing what kind of prisons are these. I hope that these kids have to do each day from very early in the morning to the late evening hard work with two times per day just water, a cheap soup and cheap bread. Nowhere a gym with games, TV and good food. I am convinced that next time they will think twice to do harm to somebody.

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Very much the opposite, they’ll be going to school, getting psychological help, assistance in becoming better humans.

We want to be able to release them into society as productive members, not create bitter and hardened criminals.

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So you want these kids, who killed somebody in cold blood, have TV, gym and fun in the prison in order to convince them that it is a bad idea to do it again, because they may end up in the same situation? Sorry, I was almost choking from laughing.

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If you think prison is “fun” just because inmates are being treated with humanity and respect I don’t know what to tell you.

Recidivism in Sweden is just under 45% after 3 years and just under 70% in the US. The US being “tough on crime” and all.

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And Russia or China? What percentage of recidivism you find there? I assume much lower than even Sweden.

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Not sure why you’d look at Russia or China as examples of countries doing things well, or looking out for their citizens. Also I’m not sure I’d trust statistics from such authoritarian countries. That said, for China it seems to be between 40 and 50 percent, estimated since statistics were hard to come by. For Russia I didn’t manage to find any data. Not that I would trust that data anyway.

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You can manipulate statistics in many ways. No totalitarian regime, dictator, or similar system is required for that. Russia and China can currently be considered extreme examples. However, another user below has provided Chinese sources claiming that everything is fine in China. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you consider those sources trustworthy.

I spent part of my youth living in a country under an authoritarian regime. Crime was very rare, and people generally wanted nothing to do with the security services, especially not with the prison system. Women could walk alone at night with little fear for their safety. Of course, incidents still occurred, but the perpetrators often faced severe consequences. In some cases, a man who beat his wife end up being beaten up by the police - know such cases.

Does that sound like a dream? In some respects, life was not that bad. In others, it was quite the opposite. Why? Because corruption and oppression were also very real possibilities and if you made perhaps rightfully some troubles it could be a tough life for you then, but that is another topic.

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China is increasingly focusing on rehab and education, even among adult prison populations.

The revised law emphasizes that inmates’ personal dignity, life, health and physical safety must remain inviolable. It also clearly stipulates that their rights to defense and to receive legal assistance while serving sentences should be protected. […]
The amended law focuses on enhancing the quality of inmate education and rehabilitation, requiring innovative measures to help them reintegrate into society.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202605/01/WS69f3feb1a310d6866eb4691d.html

China also separates juveniles from the adults and send them to correctional schools not ordinary prisons.
https://en.spp.gov.cn/2026-01/05/c_1153075.htm

All that sounds very sweet but their primary reason seem to be to create better performing prison labour. This is the note that the china daily ends the article with:

Justice Minister He Rong said the update — the first comprehensive revision since 1994 — is a necessary response to public demand for fairness, justice and security.
She added that improvements in law enforcement institutions and mechanisms have created new circumstances and higher demands placed on prison work.
Therefore, it is necessary to revise the law to incorporate the experiences, practices and mechanisms developed over the past 30 years, ensuring that prison work progresses in an orderly manner under the rule of law.

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