Sweden leads the EU in fatal shootings

In 2024, gun violence in Sweden was a severe problem that took lives. According to Reuters, organized and gang crimes are still prevalent in Sweden, despite a decline in fatal shootings in 2024 compared to 2023.

 Last year, Sweden had the highest rate of deadly gun violence in the EU; with just one week remaining in the year, 40 people have died in Sweden as a result of gun violence.

For this 10-million-person European nation, the number is frightening and concerning; however, Swedish police data indicates that 262 shootings took place there in 2024.

After more than ten years of deadly gang violence, Swedish police recently stated that the country's violent crime rates will slightly improve in 2024. They attributed this to an increase in electronic surveillance and surveillance cameras.

According to reports, Swedish police intend to increase surveillance by five times, deploying over 2,500 cameras and drones.

Human rights and the rule of law are threatened by the swift and widespread adoption of new police tactics and laws, according to rights groups. In 2023, the most recent year for which records are available, Swedish courts sentenced almost 200,000 people to prison terms, a 25 percent increase from the year before and a double-digit increase from 2014.

According to Swedish police, there is still a high level of criminal intent in the nation even though violent crime rates have decreased. Gangs, meanwhile, are increasingly employing novel strategies.

According to Swedish police, gangs are openly recruiting children through social media platforms, which act as virtual marketplaces. In some cases, these children are as young as 11, and they are then used to carry out murders and bombings throughout the Nordic region.

This is because there are few legal consequences for children and the gangs that recruit them after they are caught by police.

A professor of criminology at Malmö University in Sweden said that police action appears to have contributed to a reduction in shootings and armed murders, but that does not mean the end of the crime wave in Sweden. “We are getting used to bad conditions”.