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Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest rates of gun
violence in Europe to one of the highest over the last couple of
decades, pushing law and order to the top of the political
agenda ahead of a general election next year.
"We want to look at the possibility of giving the police
authority another key tool for preventing new shootings,"
Interior Minister Mikael Damberg told reporters. "We will do
everything in our power to fight these gangs."
The government will appoint a commission to look at measures
including the expansion of secret, preventative surveillance of
suspects, currently only allowed in cases related to national
security.
There is already a commission looking at giving police greater
powers to intercept electronic communications which will report
next year.
The government has tightened punishments for crimes including
weapons possession and has taken a range of other measures to
get to grips with a surge in gang-related violence.
While experts point to drugs, social deprivation and segregation
as factors behind a growing gang culture in Sweden's major
cities, the surge in deadly shootings has left authorities
baffled.
Shooting deaths began to increase in the mid-2000s, taking
Sweden in the opposite direction to most other countries in
Europe, where lethal violence, both in general and with
firearms, has declined, according to a report this year by
Sweden's National Council for Crime Prevention.
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by David Holmes)
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