In an updated capacity report that the Prison and Probation Service recently submitted to the government (dnr KV 2026–20893), the authority estimates that the need for prison and remand places may amount to as many as 45,000 within 15 years. If this development is realized, Sweden, measured in terms of the number of people deprived of liberty per 100,000 inhabitants, will in barely two decades go from levels comparable to those of our Nordic neighbors to being on a par with Erdogan's authoritarian rule in Turkey, far from the levels that characterize the rest of Western Europe.
The costs are estimated at between SEK 80 and 85 billion annually, to be compared with the approximately SEK 24 billion set aside for the Correctional Service in 2026. This is therefore an expenditure increase of approximately SEK 60 billion each year. By way of comparison, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) has estimated the economic reform space during the next mandate period at around SEK 50 billion. This is then a total of four years. The planned and desired by politicians annual additional cost of the prison expansion thus exceeds this entire scope for reform.
It is hard to imagine any other policy area where decisions with such far-reaching economic and social consequences could be made without a basic discussion of costs, feasibility and expected results. The warnings have hardly been lacking. Authorities as well as referral bodies and the Legislative Council have pointed out the problem that the combined effects of all increased penalties are not taken into account.
The Correctional Service notes with unusual candor that an operation with upwards of 45,000 places will have to be conducted in a completely different way than today. What this means in practice, we already see the contours of: double coverage and reduced opportunities for education and rehabilitation, which in the long run complicates the work of preventing recidivism.
It is difficult to imagine any other policy area where decisions with such far-reaching economic and social consequences could be made without a basic discussion of costs, feasibility and expected results
In the past few days, the referral processing of the investigation "More flexible rules on the enforcement of detention and prison sentences" (SOU 2026:30) was also completed. Behind the seemingly innocuous title hides proposals for significant deteriorations in the legal protection of detainees. The right to a private room in custody is proposed to be abolished, detainees should be able to be placed in police custody to a greater extent and the time limits for how long convicted persons may be held in custody while waiting for a place of detention should be removed.
The proposals are particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that Sweden has been criticized for several decades by international human rights bodies for its detention conditions and the treatment of people with the right to be considered innocent. A recently submitted doctoral thesis at Stockholm University shows how these problems have persisted despite repeated criticism, while both the use of detention and the length of detention have increased.
It is now proposed that detainees can be placed in even worse conditions, while convicts can be held longer in detention, where the opportunities for employment and treatment are significantly worse than in prison. The proposals thus not only run the risk of going against international human rights principles - which the Ombudsman for Justice has warned about in relation to longer stays in police custody - but also of being counterproductive to the goal of reducing crime. And perhaps the most remarkable thing: the investigation itself states that most of the proposals will neither create more places nor solve the overcrowding crisis.
It is a strange arrangement when a politically created crisis gets to decide which rights the state needs to respect
Among other things, the investigation justifies the proposals with the fact that the Correctional Service has difficulty maintaining today's rules in the current overcrowding crisis. It is a strange arrangement when a politically created crisis gets to decide which rights the state needs to respect.
But what in the current trend of crime and violence really motivates this exceptional and extremely costly expansion of the prison system? Crime has in many respects decreased for a long time, long before the toughening of penalties in recent years. Nor can the long-awaited reduction in shootings be simply attributed to the increased number of arrests. Several of the most extensive penalty increases have not yet had an impact, but are expected to drive the increase in the number of inmates in the coming years.
Fighting crime and increasing people's security are obvious crime policy goals. But its success cannot be measured in the number of prison places. We believe that a fundamental reconsideration of the mass lockdown policy is now required. It is not responsible to decide on a historic expansion of the prison system and then abolish legal security guarantees when there are not enough places. Nor is it responsible to push through reforms without reporting how they are to be financed or what society is forced to give up instead. Where are the tens of billions required each year to be taken from? From the school, healthcare, psychiatry, social services or other activities that are more important in preventing crime?
Now the election campaign is over. It is time that the politicians stop competing for who can lock up the most and start taking responsibility for what the policy costs, what it achieves and what society it creates.
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