The Tidö parties' stricter criminal policy means that more criminals will be sentenced to longer prison sentences – something that has already had major consequences. Prisons and detention centres are overcrowded and the courts are cowering under an ever-heavy workload.
Richard Boström is the head of the Prison and Probation Service in Kristianstad, where stricter criminal legislation has meant that both the jail and the prison are overloaded. The newly built prison, which is nearing completion, is also expected to fill up quickly.
"Politicians give money to the police to make them more efficient and do more. But for those of us in the Prison and Probation Service, it takes much longer to catch up with that work. It's just a matter of building – we can let go of the idea that we might build too fast or too big," he says.
Risk to legal certainty
Earlier this week, the Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, Martin Holmgren, expressed that they are not able to expand at the same pace as the Tidö Agreement requires.
"Of course we could put an awful lot of people in gymnasiums in our prisons, but then we don't run a correctional system anymore," he said in SVT's 30 minutes.
There are also signals from the court system that more resources are needed to prevent the work situation from becoming unsustainable. One of the 239 judges who signed this summer's petition is Fredrik Bohlin, judge in Ystad District Court. Already today, he and many colleagues have to work extra evenings and weekends to keep up with their tasks.
"So far, you can be confident that the verdict will work in Swedish courts. But I'm not sure that it will continue to do so if nothing is done immediately. We need more judges to handle the extra tasks that upcoming stricter penalties and changed legislation entail.