The statistics for last year are preliminary and may include some additional murders, as there are always some uncertain cases with the medical examiner. However, the police can still confirm that the levels are historically low.
The police make this finding at the same time as the Police Authority is evaluating Operation Beta - a special initiative that has identified and targeted men who are at risk of exposing their loved ones to deadly violence.
Is this due to Beta? We can only hope. We'll see next year and the year after that. You can't draw overly broad or hasty conclusions, says criminologist Anders Östlund, who is behind the approach.
Since Operation Beta began in 2023, Östlund has identified over 1,200 men at risk. Almost all of them have received home visits from the police, he says.
Police surge
The national operation ended this summer and now the work continues in the police regions.
"We are following this closely and it is primarily my task to ensure that we work broadly on this. It looks a little different today, but we have still made a very big step forward," says National Police Chief Petra Lundh.
As part of Beta, 17 murders of women by a close relative were studied during 2023–2024, and the review pointed to a couple of cases where the women would still have been alive if the police and social services had done their jobs properly.
Today the situation is better, Anders Östlund believes.
It's hard to count something that hasn't happened, but personally I know of maybe three cases where the probability of murder was extremely high, but which were prevented because of the spotlight on the perpetrator.
Changed culture
Östlund says there is a change in attitude within the police, where men's violence against women and children is given higher priority. In some regions, this type of violence falls under serious-crime units instead of under close-relationship groups.
Unfortunately, it's that simple. If you have the perspective that this is a domestic dispute or a family dispute, then the consequences will be accordingly. But if it's a serious crime, then suddenly there's a different tone to the response, he says.
At the same time, cases of abuse in close relationships are increasing - which is good, Östlund explains.
Violence in close relationships has in common with traffic offenses, drug offenses and violations of the knife law that we do not want these crimes to decrease. Well, we want them to decrease, but not statistically, because that means the hidden number decreases.
