By July 1 next year, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service is expected to have built prison wards for children. Not only will 15–17-year-olds serve sentences there, but also 13 and 14-year-olds convicted of serious crimes. The places in the special youth homes, Sis-hem, which currently accept convicted teenagers, will be phased out.
But the government's proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 13 is strongly questioned by the Swedish Prison and Probation Service. In its response to the consultation, the agency writes that imprisonment at a young age can lead to negative consequences, and that children "as young as 13 years old should be cared for in other ways."
“These points of view become more evident the younger the children involved,” says Elisabeth Lager, acting legal director at the Swedish Prison and Probation Service.
Too immature
The outgoing Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, Martin Holmgren, has previously said that he does not think 13-year-olds should be in prison.
–In my heart and soul, I don't think so. A 13-year-old is typically so immature that he or she, who makes a mistake, should be taken care of in a different way, he said in SVT's "30 Minuten" in September.
Now the objection is also raised in the authority's statement to the government, with the addition that "which age of criminal responsibility should ultimately apply is a criminal policy issue."
The Swedish Prison and Probation Service is already preparing to accept older teenagers, aged 15–17, in some of the country's prisons. However, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service writes in the consultation response that it is not "prepared or equipped to take care of children as young as 14, let alone 13" in prisons, detention centres and in probation.
Staff and premises
"Many of the questions are linked to how we should run the school and what skills the staff must have to be able to accommodate such very young children. We also need to look at what the departments should look like, because it may not be appropriate to have 13-year-olds together with 17-year-olds," says Elisabeth Lager.
It is only recently that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service was tasked with starting to prepare for 13- and 14-year-olds, she points out.
So it's no wonder that we are not equipped. But it is the government and parliament that decide, we implement and have to do our best, says Elisabeth Lager.
How the government will respond to the Prison and Probation Service's views remains to be seen. In a written comment, Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (M) says: "We will analyze all the consultation responses carefully in the ongoing work." He also writes that when it comes to the most serious crimes, "we must take care of children in a completely different way than today to protect crime victims, society at large and the children in question."
