# How Sweden turned the tide on gang violence

> Shootings and bombings once hit Sweden almost daily. Police in a Stockholm suburb say the trend has finally broken.
- Title: How Sweden turned the tide on gang violence · Malay Mail
- Summary: Shootings and bombings once hit Sweden almost daily. Police in a Stockholm suburb say the trend has finally broken. Tougher gun sentences, wider police…
- Keywords: sweden, organised crime, policing, gun laws, youth recruitment, news, world, turned, tide, gang, violence, Malay Mail
- Source: Malay Mail — https://malaymail.com/news/world/2026/09/13/fewer-bullets-fewer-bombs-how-sweden-is-turning-the-tide-from-gangland-violence/234911
- Published: 2026-09-13T07:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: sweden, organised crime, policing, gun laws, youth recruitment, news, world
## Thanked outside the metro
At Farsta station in south Stockholm, where a 2023 shooting killed two bystanders, locals now stop police commissioner Max Akerwall to say thanks.

> Good job!
## A decade of grenades
A quiet country spent more than ten years absorbing attacks by organised crime networks: automatic weapons, hand grenades and bombs, sometimes in daylight.
## The peak was 2022
Networks fighting over the drugs market made shootings and bombings an almost daily event. Akerwall says that curve has now bent the other way.

> Sweden was experiencing a wave of violence in 2022 and 2023. But we've managed to reverse the trend.
## 205 shootings down to 39
In the first half of 2022 police counted 205 shootings, 34 dead and 49 wounded. Same months this year: 39 shootings, eight dead, 15 wounded.
## Bombings falling too
Explosions dropped from 108 in January to June last year to 75 over the same stretch this year.
## New tools, new laws
Akerwall credits Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's government, in office since 2022. Tougher sentences for carrying a gun changed the maths for anyone thinking of arming up.

> In the past four years we've gotten many new tools, with new legislation.
## Both sides agree
The government promises to keep the crackdown going if it wins Sunday's election. The left-wing opposition backs the hard line too, so the policy survives either result.
## Boots and cameras
In Ragsved, a police-designated vulnerable area with an open drug scene, officers patrol on foot while cameras on the facades record everything.

> All of these measures help to create calm, an increased sense of security in society.
## What residents notice
Greger Pettersson, 65, once had a shooting right outside his home and still never moved. Ahcene Oumeraci, a father of five, says the gunfire has stopped.

> You don't hear shootings anymore, there hasn't been that much lately.
## Hitmen recruited by phone
Bosses abroad hire kids on encrypted apps to carry out killings for cash, betting they are too young to prosecute. From January to July, 170 under-15s were suspected of violent crime.

> There are so unbelievably many young people being recruited on social media, on their phones.
## Chasing the bosses
Sweden now forces platforms to pull hitman ads, has scrapped softer youth sentences, and is hunting leaders overseas. Foxtrot's Rawa Majid is believed to be in Iran.
## The deeper problem
With 17,000 active gang criminals and half a million people living under parallel justice systems, criminologist Sven Granath says the welfare state is the real defence.

> There will be fewer people inclined toward violence and criminal careers if society and the environment they grow up in is more secure.
## Key takeaway

Tougher gun sentences, wider police powers and visible patrols cut Sweden's shootings sharply, but the gangs have moved on to recruiting children by phone.