Swedish Prisons Put On 'High Alert' Due To Overpopulation - Official

Swedish Prisons Put on 'High Alert' Due to Overpopulation - Official

Swedish prisons have been put on high alert due to overpopulation, according to the penitentiary service's director general Martin Holmgren

STOCKHOLM (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2020) Swedish prisons have been put on high alert due to overpopulation, according to the penitentiary service's director general Martin Holmgren.

"At present, all prisons nationwide are fully occupied, and the situation is causing so much concern for the first time in many years. To cope with the crisis, we decided to switch to the state of high alert," Holmgren wrote in an article for the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

According to the official, the new format of work implies a faster decision-making procedure, a concentration of resources and the creation of a task force in charge of optimizing prison flows.

The Swedish prison population has been steadily rising since 2017. Prior to that, the trend was downward for several years and a number of penitentiary facilities were closed. Currently, prisons are operating at 100 percent capacity, and there is a shortage of places in the facilities where those convicted of particularly serious crimes are held.

The authorities are planning to build new prisons that could accommodate about 2,000 prisoners, but it may take about 10 years.