Police in Värmland have revealed up to 25 per cent of their time and resources are spent on asylum seekers, as the Swedish government yesterday announced a further two billion Swedish Krona for policing to 2020.
Lars Serenander, Chief Superintendent of the district, estimates that about 15-25 per cent of police time is spent dealing with issues related to migrants seeking asylum.
The notice was posted on the force’s website in response to questions in the media over how record numbers of migrants are affecting police work.
While Serenander plays down the seriousness of incidents related to asylum seekers, other police officers describe the situation in Sweden as “social chaos”.
Inspector Lisa Reventberg has reported a “mass exodus” of officers from the job under the force’s politically correct national police chief, while one recently resigned detective said the country’s “rule of law has completely broken down”.
Serenander said there are a number of cases where police are called to intervene at migrant accommodation, often far away, and then find it difficult to understand what happened or assess whether it’s appropriate for officers to intervene.
The district police chief stated that sometimes when officers arrive at migrant housing, responding to an emergency call, they find nothing serious has happened.
“Due to language problems, sometimes it is simply difficult to make the right judgments”, he added.
Värmland’s police website states that in Filipstad, where 2,000 asylum seekers are housed, unaccompanied migrants regularly visit the police station requesting services that are handled by other authorities.
Serenander’s account of police dealings with migrants differs substantially from that of retired police detective Anders Bergstedt. In internal police correspondence, he said immigration has brought “great costs and problems which nobody dreamed of” and warned that Sweden faces “growing social chaos”.
The government yesterday announced an extra 2 billion krona for policing up to 2020, from which an additional 1,500 officers will be trained.
National police chief Dan Eliasson welcomed the planned cash injection, calling it “an important contribution and an important signal that the police will continue to grow in coming years”.
The funding boost follows a letter sent earlier this year in which Eliasson asked that the government fund up to 2,500 new police officers, so as to keep up with migration flows.
Frontline officer Peter Larsson slammed the request, arguing that 2,500 new officers were needed “a long time ago” in order to cope with existing staffing problems caused by increased pressures on police. These include, he wrote, “fighting in the asylum accommodation” and “the increased threat of terrorism”.
Eliasson has faced backlash recently, being accused of prioritising politics over security, and sympathising with murderers.
Lisa Reventberg, a police inspector in Stockholm, lamented a “mass exodus” of police officers from the force under Eliasson’s leadership.
After the police chief repeatedly criticised the anti-mass migration Sweden Democrats party, Reventberg wrote that “It is wrong that he devotes his time to evaluate the political parties and their opinions rather than to keep political neutrality and put time and effort to respond to its own staff in place.”
“You have a mandate to work for the Swedish people, not against them as you so consistently and diligently do today” she wrote, directly addressing the national police chief.
Nils Lofgren, who has quit the force after nearly thirty years, last month described the situation in Sweden for police as a “disaster”.
“This is not a temporary slump. It is a disaster. The rule of law has completely broken down. Whoever has the greatest violence the capital is the one that controls the local community”, the criminal investigator wrote.
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