Sweden's Police Force Grows, But Is It Enough to Ensure Safety?

Of the nearly 40,000 police employees today, just under 24,000 are police officers. This is the highest number ever, but the authority is struggling to increase local presence, with more police on the streets and in public spaces.

In its annual report, the police are reporting for the first time the number of "uniformed police in external service", i.e. those visible to citizens.

In December last year, there were 10,035, an increase of 2,202 since 2015.

Not enough

TT: Is it enough?

No, it's not, says the National Police Commissioner.

The growth also looks different in the police regions. Worst has been in the Stockholm region, which has only received 169 more uniformed police in external service since 2015. An increase of seven percent.

We're trying to accelerate the pace as much as possible, says Lundh.

But you have to realize that it's not just a matter of conjuring up police officers.

Higher salary

She thinks, however, that things are looking good ahead. Last autumn, all places at the police academies were filled for the first time, and the number of uniformed police in external service for the whole country increased by 716 last year.

Investments have been made in police salaries. All police officers now have at least 31,000 kronor in monthly salary, and compensation for inconvenient working hours has doubled in two years.

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer (The Moderate Party) looks positively on the development over the past year, when the number of police officers has increased.

But is the increase enough?

The growth rate needs to increase. That's also the background to why we're now making large investments.

Awaiting goals

The Police Authority has decided that future police growth will take place locally, and mainly in uniformed external service.

Lundh thinks that today's number of police officers is unreasonable, considering the development of violence and Sweden's large geographical area, and the police are still waiting for the government to set a new long-term goal for police growth. The previous one was reached last spring. Then, the growth had reached 10,000 more police employees compared to the beginning of 2016. But two-thirds of them are civilian employees.

A goal is to reach an EU average in terms of the number of police officers in relation to population size.