Born out of frustration over so many discontinued preliminary investigations, new ways are now being tried to protect and support abused women, and to prosecute the perpetrators. 

- It should be shitty to be a criminal and engage in violence in a close relationship, says Markus Antonsson, police inspector and group manager for Igor 

Men's violence against women leads to deaths in between 15 - 20 cases per year, the last 20 years according to the Crime Prevention Council (BRÅ).

So far this year alone, there are 12 suspected such cases.

But the number of assault cases amounts to just over ten thousand and the number of unreported cases is large.

This is something that the Igor project works to prevent.

Cases the police did not know about

Markus Antonsson has worked for 20 years with this type of crime.

Over the years, he has taken notes in frustration, over cases being closed, that no one kept track of the perpetrators afterwards.

This frustration laid the foundation for the project Igor: I Joint Organization against Relational Violence, a joint government project between social services and the police.

- We noticed that it was the same people who appeared at both authorities.

The social services have a lot of cases that the police do not know about and we have a lot of cases that they do not know about.

Now we can share information and support women we otherwise would not have known, says Markus Antonsson.

"Need to punctuate these men"

Some of the most important tools in the Igor project are home visits, frequent follow-ups of all the tips they receive, increased support for women and offering men treatment.

When this is not possible, they try to get them prosecuted for other crimes - something that is not usually done in this crime category. 

- We need to mark these men, we need to look for them, look for them to be there when they are released from prison, he says. 

Now that the project has been around for just over a year, they can see that they have managed to reach more perpetrators of violence, including those who are positive about treatment, have reached more women and supported more people to dare to report. 

- We need to work vigorously with this.

For that, we need more investigators in crime in close relationships so we do not put these investigations on high, he says.

Hear Markus Antonsson in the clip above describe the type of men who murder women.