The Ministry of Justice is now sending out a new bill for consultation to stop gangs recruiting children and young people for violent acts.
The proposal means that the police will be able to order social media platforms to remove recruitment content, as soon as possible and no later than within one hour. Failure to do so could result in fines of between SEK 5,000 and five million. The idea is that the law will come into force on September 1.
Like terrorism
The police should be able to take down gang recruitment advertisements in the same way as they can do today with regard to terrorist content, says Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer at the National Conference on People and Defence in Sälen.
National Police Commissioner Petra Lundh believes the proposal is a step forward. When the police today scan social media and discover attempts to recruit children for crime, they can only urge the social platforms. However, following the call is voluntary.
But when recruitment attempts move to encrypted apps, the new bill is not enough for the police to access them.
"It's a much bigger and different problem. People are moving to encrypted services like Signal and they don't cooperate with authorities at all," says Lundh.
Around the clock
Until November 2025, 127 children under the age of 15 were suspected of involvement in murder or murder plots.
It is a figure that should make the whole of society stop, says Lundh in her speech at the National Conference on People and Defence.
She announces that the police are now starting a "national police operation" to put pressure on municipalities and their social services so that a child who is at risk of being recruited is taken care of that same evening - not the next weekday.
In many municipalities, there is a lack of current situational awareness, routines and emergency services, which can result in a child who is found with a hand grenade in the evening being left without support the next morning. We cannot have it like that in Sweden, says Lundh.
The police work 24/7. Criminals do it too. Social Services must be given the conditions to do the same. Society must be prepared to act 24/7.
Minister of Justice Strömmer thinks it is positive that the police now see that they must be a "mobilizing force" in society.
