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Of: TT
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1 of 3 | Photo: Jessica Gow
Martin Holmgren, director general of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service.
Lack of venues, visits and licenses, the corona pandemic and staffing situation have characterized Martin Holmgren’s first months as Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service. But he has also had time to watch a television series about the worst prisons in the world.
– There you can really see how you can be forced to carry out prison care in a different way. Staff guard the outer border and then the prisoners take care of everything inside, says CEO Martin Holmgren when TT meets him at the regional office of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service in Liljeholmen, Stockholm.
He doesn’t see the series as an inspiration for what the Swedish Prison and Probation Service should look like.
– But as part of my need to develop my skills, it is also useful to see the contrasts.
Strange start
Martin Holmgren assumed the position of Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service on March 2 this year, after just over five years as Director General of the Swedish Court Administration.
– I barely had time to get started before the corona pandemic became a reality. Already on March 13, I had to make the decision to go up in personal mode to handle the crown mode.
The pandemic crushed his well-thought-out plan to learn about the business through visits to prisons, institutions and parole. Instead, he stayed at the regional office in Stockholm and met his employees in the country through video conferences and phone calls.
– Of course it was not at all as I had imagined, he says.
Recently, Martin Holmgren was able to put his original plan into action and visit operations in the country.
– It is incredibly important for me to do a good job and understand what are the issues and issues that are relevant in the business.
Staff situation and labor crisis
And there are currently a lot of problems in the Swedish Prison and Probation Service. The best known is the lack of space, which has certainly been a problem for several years, but has received more attention since Martin Holmgren chose to appear on DN’s discussion page and report that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service decided to work on a special template due to lack of space and overcrowding.
– We saw that we cannot work in our usual organization. We need to accelerate the pace to expand the number of places both in prisons and institutions in the short term.
TT: Why did you choose to go out with the staff decision on a discussion page?
– There are many debaters who wanted to say that it is full in institutions and prisons. I thought now was the time to say what this really means to us. That this is our mission, we are the ones who can do it, there is no one else to do it for us.
Missing margins
Very few places in institutions and prisons have more far-reaching consequences than the fact that one inmate has to share a cell with another in a bunk. Martin Holmgren says it affects relapse prevention work, which is one of the agency’s core tasks, but also the safety of inmates and employees. It is about being able to have margins to be able to locate each inmate where he best fits, but also to be able to quickly transfer inmates who present security risks.
– We need to have that margin and today we don’t have it.
TT: If today there was a riot in an institution and many inmates had to be transferred from there, is there a possibility that that would happen?
– Opportunities become more challenging the fewer places we have available. If something like this happened, we would have to be prepared to move people across the country.
Learned by mistake
Martin Holmgren goes on to say that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service works actively to prevent riots and riots. Among other things, through smaller units in institutions.
– Previously, prisoners were allowed to hang out in much larger groups, where a lot could happen. Today there are more sectioned and smaller groups and from that perspective we have greater opportunities to meet when a serious incident occurs.
TT: Has the overcrowding so far led to people who should be in an institution with a high security class being placed in an institution with less security?
– I will be honest and say that we are looking for all possible things to resolve this situation.
Among other things, the inmates, after a “proper security assessment”, have been transferred from closed class 2 institutions to open class 3 institutions.
– We have taken great care that it is in the proper security class and we will continue to be, says Martin Holmgren.
Wait for jail
Another consequence of the lack of space in the institutions is that people who have been sentenced to prison, but who have been judged by the court do not need to be detained, in some cases they have been given more time before they have to report to the institution to serve his sentence. The period of suspension, that is, the time a sentenced person has before serving the sentence, has been extended from 50 to 100 days.
– We felt that we had to do it to be able to prioritize the use of existing places, he says.
This was noticed and criticized when it turned out that a person suspected of seriously abusing two minor children in a Solna cemetery did so while on the run while waiting to serve a prison sentence for another crime.
When it comes to when a convict should appear within 100 days, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service conducts an individual assessment, just like when it comes to where an inmate will be placed.
– Then it does not rule out that things like this could happen, as in Solna for example.
Turn stones
According to Martin Holmgren, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service is working intensively to remedy space shortages both in the short and long term and to build a flexible infrastructure to deal with the ups and downs of influx to institutions and prisons in the future. .
TT: Are you considering the possibility of renting places in prisons in other countries?
– It is an issue on which the government and the Riksdag must take a position.
He says that the debate article that spoke of the situation of staff due to lack of space caused the influx of advice on solutions to the crisis.
– For example, we are hopeful that we can restart the old national institution in Härnösand as a class 2 institution. It is there and it could be used quite quickly, provided we can agree and find solutions with the current owners.
Carried out
In the short term, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service is also working to expand existing institutions with, for example, modular houses and, in the longer term, two new class 2 institutions will be built. One, with 300 seats, will be located in Trelleborg and another class 2 institution, according to Justice Minister Morgan Johansson (S), it will be built somewhere in “eastern Sweden”.
TT: Can you tell us more exactly where the institution ends?
– We are looking in the southeast of Sweden. So I can also say that we have long-range plans. I see in front of me that we will be able to reach a position in the coming weeks, he says.
It cannot be mistaken that Martin Holmgren, after the first turbulent times, has established himself well as Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service. When we part ways, he raves about the fantastic job everyone does and how well the organization works in a crisis.
– All of these people are so proud, talented and committed. And then it will be hell if I can’t give you the conditions for this to work in the future as well.
TT: Should it be construed that you will stay in this post for a while?
– Yes, they will probably carry me out, says Martin Holmgren.
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