The so-called area police are to work in local crime prevention and create security by being visible in vulnerable areas.
According to national police chief Anders Thornberg, the number of area police officers has increased in recent years, and in a reply after Expressen's lead writer Anna Dahlberg demanded his resignation, he wrote the other day that the number of area police officers "is currently 1,181".
But that figure is now being met with strong criticism.
Joakim Söderström, who worked for a long time in various positions within the police, believes that it is largely made up of air because the police recoded, for example, detectives and traffic police officers into area police officers - even though their duties have not changed.
- It is remarkable that the figure is used, he says.
"occurs"
SVT has been in contact with an area police officer who confirms that the recoding occurs locally, and when SVT asks national police chief Anders Thornberg, he confirms that area police officers sometimes have to deal with other tasks.
- We would like the area police officers to be able to work as area police officers every day, but they can't because they have to strengthen in other areas.
But Thornberg denies that they would deliberately recode staff to improve the numbers.
- As far as I know, we don't do that.
"A CEO had been fired"
Joakim Söderström recently demanded Anders Thornberg's resignation in a debate article in Dagens Industri.
Söderström refers to the fact that the development of crime in several areas is going in the wrong direction, while the police have received very large increases in resources.
After his police career, Joakim Söderström has worked as a businessman and in the security industry.
At the beginning of the year there were reports that he would be on the way to a political commitment, but he refutes these reports to SVT.
He believes that several of the Tidö Agreement's proposals in the legal area are steps in the right direction, but that they require a new police leadership to be implemented.
- If Swedish Police had been a joint-stock company and the owners had put in so much money but the results had only gotten worse - then the CEO would have been fired.
Anders Thornberg answers:
- He can answer for what he thinks.
He doesn't work in the police department.
We are too few in the Swedish police, we do the best we can with the resources we have, we have a crime rate that is unprecedented!
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Hear the national police chief Anders Thornberg.
Photo: Rami Hazim/SVT.