Faced with gang violence, Sweden wants to reduce criminal liability to 13 years

The reform, presented on October 27 2025, aims to combat drug trafficking gangs that recruit especially young teenagers, especially through social networks.

With 363 shootings and 53 deaths in 2023, the country is one of the main gateways for cocaine in Northern Europe. Sweden is also one of the European Union countries most affected by gang violence. A surprise in this country which is quite famous for its calm.

On the southern outskirts of Stockholm, in a large cluster of buildings erected in the 1960s and criticized for throwing out the poor and immigrants, Erna lives. He has spent his entire life there and although he has an attachment to the neighborhood where he lives, this civil servant also describes his sometimes very violent daily life there. “There have been a lot of shootings. Some time ago they found two boys in the basement, they had been tortured. This kind of thing happens quite often although there are no deaths every time.”

https://www.franceinfo.fr/faits-divers/criminalite-la-suede-confrontee-a-la-guerre-des-gangs_6837950.html

In April 2024, while cycling with his son, a man was shot and killed after an argument with young gang members. The killer was 17 years old. Erna, who raised her son alone in this environment, had a pot belly. “It was done so coldly… It scared me.” He, who previously never hesitated to act, now seemed even more hesitant. “I’ve never been afraid to come forward, to say ‘Hey! Don’t do that…’ or ‘I hear you…’ ‘Don’t talk to me like that'”. A warning that Erna continues to uphold, but with worry.

I can’t imagine what would happen if I ran into one of those soulless men who shot you.

Erna, a resident of a suburb south of Stockholm

French info

Police identified around fifty gangs around Stockholm alone and 14,000 active members throughout the country. Among them, one in seven are minors, generally recruited through social media.

Near Skarpnäck, the terminus of one of Stockholm’s metro lines, 25 minutes from the city center, the last shoot took place in summer. In this neighborhood, in three years, a gang affair has claimed the lives of two boys aged 15 and 18.

“If I hear shots fired, I try not to stay still,” slip Diego, 13 years old. “It’s quite surprising that a boy or girl our age can kill people for money,” his friend Oliver whispered. “Life is not a video game”, confirmed Harald.

After school, the three friends met in the neighborhood center hall. They were 13 years old, the age at which the Swedish government, consisting of a coalition of far-right and right-wingers, wants to lower the age of criminal responsibility. “It’s probably a good thing that even at our age, they risk going to prison because of this.” Judge Diego. “I wonder if this isn’t too difficult, we’re not mature enough yet,” trusting Oliver on his part.

Drug Trafficking: How to Get Teenagers Out of Gangs?

Jonas Söederlung has been an educator for 22 years and criticized these reforms: “If criminal networks know that 15-year-olds are at risk of going to prison, they will recruit 14-year-olds. If the law says you go to prison at 13, they will recruit them at 12 and so on.”he maintained. Spending on schools, sports and youth centers has plummeted. We are no longer giving our children what they need.”

I think what these kids need is to be taken care of. They need social supervision, because it’s a social problem.

Jonas Söederlung, educator in Stockholm

French info

Marx Mukaru also grew up in Skarpnäck. At the age of 15, he founded his country’s first football club run entirely by teenagers for teenagers. The goal: to encourage Swedish teenagers to pursue their ambitions. “I want to inspire them, because I believe it is possible. You can be whoever you want to be if you put your mind to it.” said the teenager.

In 2024 he won the Stockholm City Poetry Prize. Since then, he’s been going around schools convincing people that words are weapons. “If you live in an environment where people come from all over the world, and the only time they are talked about in the media is when they do stupid things, it feeds the idea that you can’t survive.” support the young man. An observation that Marx regretted, saying that there was so much talent in this Swedish suburb that it was not reduced to the level of crime alone.