A new Brå report shows that the proportion of serious crimes cleared up last year was 19 percent – the same level as 2018.
One explanation for the clearance rate not increasing, despite large budget increases and more employees, is that serious crimes have simultaneously increased significantly, and investigations have become more complicated.
Katharina von Sydow says that there is a very heavy workload on investigators, who must both train new colleagues and be responsible for more complex investigations.
Carousel of Transfers
"We have no pool of substitute police officers and the carousel of transfers within the authority, where police officers are temporarily reassigned to areas with high demand, is impairing long-term work," she says in a comment.
To retain experienced police officers, better salaries and conditions and clear career paths are needed, von Sydow believes. She agrees with Brå that the investigator role "must be upgraded".
For the Police Authority, the conclusions in the report are nothing new. The situation is well-known and much is being done to improve the work, writes the police's national media center in a comment:
"Unparalleled"
"Generally, there are several reasons why the investigation results overall have not looked so good until the end of 2023 – not least because the crime trend has been entirely exceptional and unparalleled in the rest of Europe. Moreover, the entire justice system has lagged behind the rest of Europe in terms of legislation and more."
However, much of the work is going in the right direction, according to the police.
"For example, we are clearing up significantly more explosions and shootings in gang environments, more frauds, and more other volume crimes."
Regarding investigations of particularly vulnerable victims, there has been a weak development, despite the number of investigators in that category having increased significantly while the crime rate has remained stable.
"From this, one can conclude that added personnel reinforcements have not been the solution to increasing clearance rates within that category, we need to work in a different way," the police write.
