Due to a lack of police officers, several no-go “vulnerable areas” in Sweden have been forced to hire security guards in an effort to combat crime and violence.
The municipality of Söderhamn is one of the areas forced to pay for security guards as there are currently no municipal police available to patrol the city centre with the local government diverting funds to pay for the guards, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
In the northern suburbs of Stockholm, where some of the most notorious no-go areas such as Rinkeby, Tensta, Husby, and Järva are located, around 70 million Swedish Kronor ($7,272,300/£5,915,700) has been invested in hiring security guards.
“They could support the police and help curb drug trafficking. If we overcome drug trafficking and the use of drugs in Järva, it would reduce the number of shootings in the area,” local Christian Democrat politician Erik Slottner said.
Nearly a year ago, the local government applied to police to make parts of Järva a “LOV 3” area which allows security guards to coordinate with police officers.
Earlier this week, the application was approved. However, local imam Hussein Farah Warsame said the policy would not solve the problems in Rinkeby, saying that Stockholm should do more to invest in schools and preventative measures instead.
While no new police have arrived in Järva, money has been spent on other projects such as improving lighting in some areas and setting up a speaker to play a loud sound outside of preschools to annoy drug dealers who operate in the vicinity.
In 2017, the local government in Husby attempted to hire security guards to patrol the centre of the town but were unable to find a security firm that wanted to take on the contract.
The money spent on security initiatives comes in addition to the 2.2 billion Kronor (£187.3 million) spent by the Swedish national government on combatting “segregation” in vulnerable areas across the country.
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