Crime Prevention

The best way of reducing crime and increasing the security of citizens is to prevent crime from being committed. The entire community has much to gain from greater security and reduced crime.

Crime-prevention work is important, to reduce both the number of victims and the number of perpetrators. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for supporting and encouraging crime-prevention work in different ways, both in Sweden and internationally.

To reinforce and develop crime prevention a national programme for crime prevention, entitled Our Collective Responsibility (Ds 1996:59), was presented in 1996. Based on this, and taking account of experiences since then, the point of departure for work on crime prevention should be that:

• it is everyone's responsibility,
• it should be an integrated part of other policy areas,
• it requires coordination and involvement at all levels of the community, and
• it should be based on research and formulated from a long-term perspective.

One of the most important and effective ways of preventing crime is work at grass roots level, since this is the level that is most familiar with the problem and in the best position to find appropriate solutions. Today there are local crime prevention councils or similar organisations in around 270 of the country's municipalities and urban districts. Different stakeholders, such as the police service, schools, social services and the business sector cooperate to prevent crime and increase security. For several years, the National Council for Crime Prevention has allocated special funds to encourage local crime-prevention efforts.

Sweden also participates actively in crime-prevention work at EU level. The European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN) was set up during Sweden's Presidency of the EU in the spring of 2001. The network is intended to contribute to and develop the Union's crime-prevention efforts and support crime-prevention measures at local and national levels. Special attention is to be given to juvenile, urban and drug-related crime.

The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the National Council for Crime Prevention, which is a centre for research and development in the field of crime policy. Among its tasks are the evaluation of crime policy reforms and responsibility for official statistics for the legal system. Its work also includes encouraging and developing local crime-prevention efforts and organising local authority mediation services.