NCJ Number
138903
Date Published
1991
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This is an English-language summary of analyses of crime data for Sweden from 1950 to 1990.
Abstract
The summary includes a brief chapter on the criminal justice system in Sweden and the processes by which crimes and offenders are handled within the system. Chapters on various types of crime include violent crime, sexual crime, robbery, burglary, theft of and from motor vehicles, crimes that inflict damage (vandalism), fraud, driving under the influence of alcohol, and narcotic crimes. The appendix is a compilation of the majority of data used in the publication. These official data are collected annually by the National Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Sweden. The statistics show that a relatively steady increase in crime has generally occurred in Sweden from year to year. Since 1950 the number of crimes reported to the police has increased more than five-fold, from 195,000 to more than 1.2 million in 1990. The crime trends can be largely divided into two periods, the first ending in 1964 and the second comprising the years between 1965 and 1990. The first period is characterized by a consistent, relatively small rise in the total number of crimes reported annually to the police, with an average of 13,000 more crimes recorded each year. In contrast, the second period is marked by an average increase almost twice as great, as well as large variations from year to year.