This year, 18 fatal shootings have been reported, most of which have links to the gang-criminal environment, shows SVT's compilation, which extends until 30 March.
This is more than during the same period in the last five years, when more than 40 people were killed annually, of which 5 to 12 people during January-March.
"A spiral of violence"
- Since the problem began to be registered, there is only a single month, March 2018, when there has been no case at all.
So we have some dead every month.
Sometimes it is one, sometimes it is twelve, but there are always some, says Jerzy Sarnecki, professor of criminology at Stockholm University.
- Some months there are an awful lot, other times a few.
That it varies during the year is not just due to chance.
- We know that the cases are connected to each other and that an event like this entails another, and then another, and so on.
We criminologists usually talk about "the circle of violence".
- It is a really serious problem we see here, and which continues all the time.
There is no tendency at all for it to cease, or even decrease.
Several measures are required
Sarnecki does not consider that the measures taken so far to curb firearm violence have been sufficient.
- My opinion is that it is because we have invested in arresting as many as possible, and increase their penalties and so on.
But we have not taken adequate measures to stop recruitment.
- The destructive criminal environments remain, and apparently succeed in recruiting new young men who are prepared to kill and die.
This is a serious situation.
To stop young people from applying for criminal gangs, there is a need to invest more in social services, preschool, school, mental health, activities that create community and obstacles that make it more difficult to make money from crime, he assesses.
- It is a battery of different measures, which are both expensive and time consuming.
And above all, they are not as politically spectacular as demanding more severe punishments or more police.