The police regions on the concept of clan: "One must be careful with the epithet"

The question of clan-based crime has come to the fore since Deputy National Police Chief Mats Löfving participated in Ekot's Saturday interview.

In the interview, Löfving described the debate on integration in Sweden as "naive" and said that there are many who do not want to be part of Swedish society.

As an example, he mentioned that there are about 40 family-based criminal networks that have come to the country with the aim of organizing and systematizing crime.

In the interview, the networks were described by Löfving as "so-called clans".

Not outright clans

When SVT Nyheter asks the question "Is there clan crime among you" to all eight police regions, however, a partly different picture emerges.

Three of the regions, East, West and Central, write that there is clan crime or criminal networks where some have a "clan-related structure" in their respective areas.

The other five police regions, on the other hand, choose not to use the concept of clan, or alternatively to problematize the term.

In several cases, it is described how criminal networks often have different types of compounds.

Police Region North writes, for example, that "there are criminal networks where there are family ties, but no regular clans".

Bergslagen Police Region writes "we have groups with 'family ties', but it is mainly about groups in vulnerable areas that have grown up with each other".

Be careful with the epithet

The Stockholm Police Region describes that there are about fifty criminal networks with a relatively loose composition and that parts of the networks come from the same family: "There are families where we see that you end up in criminal environments over generations.", They write, among other things.

But at the same time it is stated that the criminal networks are often based on different compositions: “It is generally our image that in these groups you can have different backgrounds, sometimes it is where you grew up, sometimes through family ties or that you apply for a self-marking grouping. ”

Police Region South states that there is crime that is family-based or linked to clans, but also chooses to problematize the concept: “It will be an interpretation of the word clan.

You have to be careful with the epithet, and can not pull an entire family over a ridge, even though many in the family may be involved in crime ", they write, among other things.

SVT Nyheter has contacted Mats Löfving, who declines an interview.