Sweden has in recent years seen a sharp increase in the number of shootings per capita, with research suggesting that the Scandinavian country is statistically on par with southern Italy and parts of Ireland.

In 2016, some 250 shootings (random, fatal and non-fatal) were registered by police in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. In 2014, that number came to 200, indicating that Sweden is experiencing a drastic rise in such incidents.

 

“We don’t really know why yet, but what we can see is that the increase comes as we also see a rise in gang-related crimes and a growing number of criminal networks,” Manne Gerell, a criminologist at Malmö University, told The Local, after Swedish public radio first wrote about new research he is involved in.

 

One study which is yet to be published suggests that Sweden experienced four to five times as many fatal shootings per capita as Norway and Germany in 2008-2014, two otherwise similar countries. Previous figures have shown that deadly violence in general is going down in Sweden, but gun violence has gone up.

 

Gerell also singled out Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, as the one place where shootings are becoming particularly common.

 

“Malmö stands out,” he said, noting that the southern city is somewhat more exposed to social problems and poverty in comparison to both the capital and Gothenburg.