A wave of gang violence and shootings in Sweden has taken everyone by surprise. The country now has one of the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU with young teenagers being recruited as hitmen in ongoing gang wars. How did it come to this?
Since 2023, a new law was introduced to allow children between the ages of 15 – 17 to be sentenced for a maximum of four years in juvenile detention for murder. Children under the age of 15 cannot be prosecuted. Gangs target young teenagers knowing they cannot be prosecuted. Children start as young as 8 or 10, acting as lookouts and guarding arms. Then they move on to sell drugs and to work as killers for hire. Jobs are advertised online and Sweden’s open culture, with sensitive personal information like people’s address, salaries and who they live with published online, means it is very easy to track down targets.
We hear from teen hitmen who describe how they were recruited and how they felt alienated by Swedish society. “Swedes look at us differently because we are Arabs …. White people can have what they want,” explains one. But there are people trying to help. “A lot of the time, we forget that they are kids. A lot of the ones who get into the lifestyle are also getting manipulated and abused by adults selling them a dream that is not true.”
Together with ‘Sweden’s Criminal Gangs: Segregation‘, these two special episodes of the Emmy-Award winning series ‘Point of No Return’ profile the conflicts and tension points changing our world.