I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing explosions in SF soon. There was a small explosion on my street on September 2nd in the Mission (SF) in broad daylight. It caused damage to a building but nobody was hurt. The police deemed it an act of vandalism.
Interesting, I live in the SFBA and haven't heard of this. 5 minutes of Google searching turned up no results. Could you point me to a news article of this event?
"The explosions were confirmed by police, who reported several buildings with broken windows at Willow Street and damage to a business’s window at Fulton Street; no injuries have been reported.
Explosions were also heard in District 9, which includes the Mission, according to one Twitter user. That report has yet to be confirmed by police."
"Police Captain Derrick Jackson of Northern Station confirmed there was “a small device that was set off in the area of 355 Fulton between Franklin and Gough.”
“There was damage to a business plate glass window, but no civilians were injured,” said Jackson in an email to the Hayes Valley Safe community group."
"A San Francisco police spokesperson told The Standard that on Saturday at approximately 3:50 p.m., police officers assigned to Tenderloin Station responded to Willow Street and Polk Street to a report of a possible explosion.
“When officers arrived on scene, they found that several building windows on Willow Street were broken and a parked vehicle was damaged,” the spokesperson said in an email."
Thank you, its in the Tenderloin not the Mission but it definitely tracks. I actually lived on Polk and O'Farrell a few years back, it wasn't uncommon for glass to get broken and many (all?) of the businesses had gating over their windows to try to discourage it.
I do wonder if it was a firework versus an IED, personally an IED would be more concerning.
>Sweden, which has a population of around 10 million, has the highest per-capita number of deadly shootings of 22 European countries. Forty-seven people have been shot dead so far this year, which, while far from American levels of gun homicide, is extreme for Europe.
The author missed this shot on this one. :)
Primary amount of gun crime is suicide in the usa. When you exclude these sideline issues, comparing gun suicides to bombings is silly. Sweden and the usa are quite similar for gun homicide. Moreover, they are for exactly the same reason.
>Among shooting suspects, 85 percent are first- or second-generation immigrants, according to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, as immigrant neighborhoods have become hotbeds for gang crime.
Sweden is a noob when it comes to immigration. Canada is pro-tier. USA isn't doing so good despite lots of experience.
More importantly, Turkey accepted far greater numbers of immigrants from the arab spring and doesn't have the problems Sweden/germany and north america has. why is very important and culture is not the answer. Canada is bottom tier compared to Turkey when it comes to immigration. They had multiple crusades through their country.
>So how did Sweden’s famously liberal electorate usher in a party with roots on the extreme right? In a word: denial.
Totally disagree. Denial is what the left wing is experiencing. The right-wing has absolutely no denial. Sweden tried to do the right thing, give people in shitty war torn middle east a new life. It blew up in their face because they totally don't understand. Worse yet, the anti-immigration folks also don't understand. So the problem is about to exacerbate. If you think it's bad now...
>Many immigrants have integrated well into Swedish society, but too many have ended up in segregated suburbs, where unemployment is high and crime is rampant.
To illustrate from history the problem. The city of detroit had this problem. Mass migration of poor black people from the south resulted in exactly the same thing. Bill Clinton many decades later failed to fix the inner city ghettos.
>Sweden is one of the most generous welfare states in the world: Although these neighborhoods are marked by high unemployment, there is no American-level material deprivation.
#theproblem
>Yet police are struggling to maintain control of some 60 immigrant-majority neighborhoods—officially labeled “vulnerable areas”—where gangs and clans compete with the state for local authority.
Funny how nobody uses the word ghetto anymore. The swedish people have intentionally pushed these immigrants into ghettos.
>In the meantime, those elites dismissed any criticism of large-scale immigration as “racism.”
For almost a decade now, everyone is a racist. This is a political ploy to silence political opponents. Every single death from a bomb or otherwise is on these people's karma.
The beauty of this absolutely idiotic political ploy the left-wing has been pushing is that it comes at a cost to themselves. Your political opponents love when you punch yourself in the face. They'll sit back and watch you keep punching yourself in the face. Greta came up a couple times in the article and she's a great example of political activists punching themselves in the face. Greta's political opponents gladly showcased her every opportunity they can because she was nonstop punching herself in the face.
I don't need a crystal ball to know Sweden will do absolutely nothing to resolve the problem. So in a few decades and an awful lot more deaths of mostly immigrants will we see the fix arrive.
Time. People used to complain about Italian immigrants in the US. They seemed to have no interest in integrating, continued to speak Italian for generations, and were involved in criminal groups like the Mafia. But eventually they did integrate and nobody thinks US people of Italian ethnicity are a "problem" the way they did a hundred years ago.
The USA has an entire history of $currentimmigrant are a bunch of impoverished not-assimilating people that the $citizens hate.
You can basically apply that to any era and find the same. However, after time those immigrants contribute and make something. Irish/Italians made the east coast. Germans built the midwest. Jews built Hollywood. etc etc.
Every single big racial migration event has in time been a hugely beneficial thing.
The problem Sweden is learning. Their welfare system and large government is preventing the newcomers from starting.
Do you mind explaining what you are referring to? I'm a bit ignorant of this era of US history. I thought the east coast was the "original" US - that is, the thirteen colonies. Specifically New York was most definitely "made" by this point, even before the US was a thing. The New York stock exchange was founded in 1792, just 16 years after the country was founded. And trade was always big in New York. I don't know much about the rest of the east coast so I may be missing some larger historical context here but I was under the impression that NY was the most important sate by far on the east coast and continues to be so.
Indeed, I think the American or perhaps the Canadian or Australian models were what Swedes had in mind when the allowed all the immigrants in from the Middle East. However, I think the entire point of the article is to point out the fact that not all immigrants - or cultures, in general - are the same. "Time" did not prove to be a miracle drug in ethnically and religiously war-torn Lebanon. And, given the ethnic and cultural proximity of these immigrants to Lebanon, it could be a more accurate reflection of the type of social tension that Sweden may be heading into, especially if the immigration from these countries continues. I'm not even making a value judgement at this point. I'm simply pointing out the fact that "Time" did not appear to cause Syria or Lebanon to be like Sweden as it was 20 years ago, or as you imagine it a hundred years from now. The thought that immigration always works out, even when the underlying cultures are incompatible, could be an illusion - one that Sweden is paying dearly for.
You don't even need to find examples outside of America.
The Amish have also been in America longer than Italians as a prominent immigrant group.
They haven't "integrated" as a function of time in the sense that's being discussed here.
All such historical comparisons are just cherry picking, or finding historical comparisons that fit the author's biases.
One could also claim that Sweden will eventually end up splitting apart along religious lines, as happened in the Indian subcontinent with India and Pakistan.
Exactly? That's probably the wrong word. There are many 'fixes' there's no 'here's the exact fix to the situation.'
The author of the article is talking about 'integration' and such. I wonder how many people on HN, who are probably natural citizens, actually integrate with their society? I would guess that I'm not by many standards.
Now lets say we want to go to the extent of getting some antisocial hackers integrated into society and contributing toward progress. What does that mean? It's not just speaking the language.
Something the author clearly doesn't know is that Turkey took in far greater numbers than they ever did. Turkey also has far more experience with immigration. Turkey also has tremendously higher immigrant crime than USA and Sweden. Yet where's the bombing exactly?
Your most basic needs like food and water require you to have a job.
So do these immigrants have jobs? No they dont. The article says unemployment is high.
Is this because they are lazy? No certainly not. Now they go on welfare in order to live, which the author touts but that's not good. That's very bad. They need a job asap. This is the key spot that must be worked on and welfare is the opposite of what you want to do.
I bet you can see where this goes. Libertarianism and smaller government. Do ANYTHING to get them employed and the government can't be involved for or against. Deregulate whatever you have to. Make these problematic suburbs into free trade zones if you need to.
I think something that's missing from this discussion is why Sweden has had such liberal immigration policies the last two decades. It's often chalked down to some sort of misguided naivety, but the truth is the entire welfare system is in real trouble unless the proportion of young people isn't inflated somehow.
The generation born in the '50s and '60s is retiring now, and it's much larger than subsequent generations. Retirement age is 67. Their healthcare and pension is paid for by the working population, who hope the next generation will pass on the torch.
That's just not going to work if the elderly equal or outnumber the working-aged population. Liberal immigration is at least a plan to avert this demographical trainwreck of a disaster. Is it sustainable? Is it even a good plan? Dunno. But the other option isn't pretty either.
>the entire welfare system is in real trouble unless the proportion of young people isn't inflated somehow
>The generation born in the '50s and '60s is retiring now, and it's much larger than subsequent generations. Retirement age is 67. Their healthcare and pension is paid for by the working population, who hope the next generation will pass on the torch.
Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system? Additionally, the article states that many of these immigrant are themselves using the welfare system. Wouldn't it be better to bite the bullet and let the country reach its carrying capacity naturally even if it results in some pain? I don't think this can be explained from an economic perspective.
I think the aging population simply acted as an allowing factor that made the discussion viable politically. But I think ultimately it happened as part of liberal immigration ideology itself. From that standpoint, the immigration policy is still largely a success. If all life is equal and everyone deserves the human rights, then from that prospective, even if the policy has issues, those issues do not outweigh the total net gain of humanity. Even if it comes at a cost for some people.
>But the other option isn't pretty either.
Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
> Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system?
"Replace" certainly seems like loaded language. I believe the intent is to bolster the younger cohorts to try to avoid too heavy a generational imbalance.
perhaps that was the wrong word to use. I used the word native and replace in terms of demographic tendencies. If the natural tendency of the Swedish population is to decline, then adding more people to the population would be very counterintuitive. What I mean is that if the Swedish population is declining then it should be left to reach the right population and let the demographics "solve itself" rather than to continually go in the opposite direction. For example we wouldn't try to increase the birth rate native population of Sweden either as that is simply trying to go back to a demographic situation which is not sustainable.
> Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system? Additionally, the article states that many of these immigrant are themselves using the welfare system. Wouldn't it be better to bite the bullet and let the country reach its carrying capacity naturally even if it results in some pain? I don't think this can be explained from an economic perspective.
I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, I'm suggesting it's an idea.
> Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
One other option is to go the route of Italy or Greece, run the welfare system at a massive imbalance, and make up for it with public debt.
The other options are all some form of breach of the social contract. Either increasing the burden on the working age demographic past what they'll accept, or the eventual bankruptcy of the pension and healthcare system. Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
>The other options are all some form of breach of the social contract
The thing is a social contract that can't actually exist doesn't matter. If we all agree to not work but still receive benefits we haven't made a meaningful social contract. Breaching that contract is probably the best thing to do. Also, its difficult to evaluate exactly what the contract is here: is it that we all agree to a welfare state (roughly speaking) or is it that in the event that it is possible to have a welfare state then we will have it? I think the latter is more reasonable.
>Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
The way I see it the point you're making here is that since they put in, they deserve to take out, as their input was when the system was still working and the contract thus in place. And that's true to a degree, but people implicitly acknowledge of and take a risk when they contribute to these systems. Did anyone think that in the event of a massive famine (for an extreme example) that they will magically be paid back on their contribution? The decline of the working population is maybe not something they thought about, but it comes implicitly as part of a general acknowledgement that a given system only exists withing a certain interval of environments.
All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
The consequence of breaching the social contract is a complete loss of credibility for the state. It's essentially defaulting on its obligations. All democratic societies essentially operate on faith, on the belief that the government will keep its promises. The population's willingness to pay taxes vanishes real fast the moment the deal isn't upheld.
The question everyone at working age will face is why they should put money into a system when what they're getting back is less than they put in. For old times sake?
People may forgive hardships when there is some external factor, but this is something that's been known for decades.
> All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
I don't know if there is a good solution to this. I'm not sure what the alternative is. Grab a pointy stick, put a colander on your head and go full mad max?
>The consequence of breaching the social contract is a complete loss of credibility for the state
This is a weak version of "uphold the social contract at all costs" mentality. Rather than uphold it because of the people that enacted the contract, we will uphold it because the people put in charge of upholding it want to stay in charge. Its a much more reasonable idea and if this is really the case then it's an unfortunate situation. That said I don't think its likely that the Swedish elderly are either contributing much to taxes or capable of revolting. The younger generations would actually react positively to it. For example I already have no trust that I will see a meaningful return on my social security "investment." I'd rather see it shut down than wait for the off chance that anything is left in 30 years.
I think democracies move too slowly to make changes like this, however. I don't think there is really any plan at all. I think that is ultimately the issue here. And unfortunately if the article is to be believed the "solution" of voting in what the article has called an extremist party may become reality. I think that's the real issue here. We can debate social contracts all we want but if an extremist party is voted in it shows that Sweden's plan was flawed from the outset.
> That said I don't think its likely that the Swedish elderly are either contributing much to taxes or capable of revolting. The younger generations would actually react positively to it.
You think the younger generations will think their parents getting completely shafted is a positive thing? Especially given many will end up supporting them financially (outside of the pension system)? I'm struggling to see how that would play out.
Nowhere in your comment did I find the contributing fact that Sweden has a drug war. It’s not 50yo ethiopian bus drivers shooting its young adults in drug gangs.
> Sweden and the usa are quite similar for gun homicide. Moreover, they are for exactly the same reason.
Eh? Sweden has 1.2 intentional homicide per 100,000 people. The US has 6.3 [1].
France and the UK have 1.2, Germany has 0.8, Japan has 0.3.
The US has 5.8 homicides using firearms only [2].
Fun(?) fact: in the US, about 1,000 per year are killed by police [3], which amounts to about 0.3 per 100,000. An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer.
>Fun(?) fact: in the US, about 1,000 per year are killed by police [3], which amounts to about 0.3 per 100,000. An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer.
This is a direct result of the larger population of armed murders in the US. "An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer" is only true when you include armed robbers and murderers in the data.
The whole US is a violent place because of high immigration numbers debate is kind of beside the point. Who is more violent is kind of not that relevant.
I think people probably voted for the right-wing party more because the left-wing party has made Sweden top of Europe for rape, shootings, and a global leader in bombings, and not because they are mad that people called them racist. When it's a regular thing for criminal gangs to target children for "humiliation robberies" where they beat and urinate on the kids to humiliate them, one can understand why the citizenry of the country would have a concern about crime.
> Brå’s overall assessment of the review is that the differences
between Sweden and other European countries as regards the
incidence of rape are smaller than indicated by Eurostat’s report
statistics. If the legal conditions and statistical methods had
been the same as in Germany, Sweden would rank somewhere
in the middle of the report statistics from Eurostat. Nor does
Sweden stand out in FRA’s survey when it comes to the
percentage of women who have stated that they have been
raped at some point. Out of the total of 27 countries included in
the survey, Sweden is among the 10 where the stated prevalence
is between 10 and 12 percent. In other words, there is no
support for the claim that Sweden deviates significantly from
other countries in north-western Europe when it comes to the
incidence of rape.
You know you're relying on Sweden's council for crime prevention to provide an argument that Sweden's council for crime prevention is doing a good job at handling crime - right?
The thing you excerpted doesn't even make sense. Let's write <country's method of rape count>-<country being evaluated> - so, S-S is Sweden's measures of Sweden's rape count, and G-S is Germany's measure of Sweden's rape count. What this article is saying is that S-S is by far the highest rape count in Europe. G-S is significantly higher than G-G. But, if you were to go through all the countries of Europe, and find E-E then G-S would be somewhere in the middle. What? What kind of a methodology is this? How would Sweden rank if you took G-E for every country in Europe?
"Sure, we're a global leader in bombings. Yes, we're a regional leader in shooting murders. Yes, we're a regional leader in humiliation robberies targeting our children. And, yes, if you look at our official statistics we seem to be the regional leader in rapes as well - but this is a right-wing conspiracy because of this nonsense analysis!"
When that right-wing trope went around a few years ago, I learned that it was a deliberate misreading of the numbers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden . Some of the key points are:
If a women says her husband raped her every day for a month, how is that entered in the statistics?
In the US until about 50 years ago there was a "marital exemption" that allowed a husband to rape his wife, so the answer would have been 0.
In some jurisdictions it's counted as one rape report.
In Sweden it's counted as about 30 rapes. (That was an eye-opener to mean when I learned about it.)
Furthermore, Sweden's definition of "rape" is broader, and includes interactions which in many other countries would not be considered a rape.
Next, Sweden tallies rapes when reported, while in some countries they are tallied when prosecuted, which lowers the effective rape rate.
Additionally, rape victims are more likely to report the crime when they have respect and trust in the police, and when rape isn't treated as something to shame the victim about. This is the case in Sweden, so rape appears to be reported at a higher rate than many other countries.
The Wikipedia page lists more reasons why a cross-national comparison like "rape capital" is difficult to make.
I see this kind of "talking point" a lot when talking about crime in Sweden. But, if you actually think about it a bit, it doesn't make any sense. For example, your point about how "If a husband rapes his wife daily for a month" counts as 30 rapes - first, which jurisdictions in Europe would consolidate 30 rapes into a single rape count? Second, do you have any reason to think that the daily rape of wives by their husbands drives the high rape count in Sweden? I'm trying to imagine what you think is going on - the wife drops in to the police station to say "Hello, for the past thirty days my husband has been raping me" and the officer says "Okay, we'll mark down a 'one rape' on our books here." It's also an obvious rhetorical trick to compare present day rapes in Sweden to archaic laws that existed in the US until ~50 years ago. Why would you do that except to obfuscate?
It's also disingenuous to talk about how Sweden's rape definition is broader. Do you know that? Have you reviewed rape definitions throughout all of Europe, or are you just repeating what Sweden's crime council says? If you took Sweden's rape definition and applied to every other country, or any standard rape definition and applied it to every country, how would Sweden rank. Have you done that? Or...
When I write that Sweden is a regional leader in rape, what I mean is that Sweden's numbers, Sweden's rape stats, are higher than the numbers reported by every country in Europe. That's not perfect, and I agree that "rape capital" claims are complicated to evaluate - but it is first, true, and second an objective comparison (reported figures to reported figures). What you mean when you say this is a "right-wing trope" and a "deliberate misreading" is that there might exist measures, which you haven't shared or which are highly contrived, by which Sweden's rape rate is only in the top third or so of Europe.
You write that "rape victims are more likely to report the crime when they have respect and trust in the police" but this is just more misleading "Maybe this" type of stuff. Do Swedish women trust the police more than the women of other countries in Europe? Have you ever looked into that? Swedish police have extremely low clearance rates for rape - why would Swedish women have special trust in them?
> t's also disingenuous to talk about how Sweden's rape definition is broader. Do you know that? Have you reviewed rape definitions throughout all of Europe, or are you just repeating what Sweden's crime council says?
Appendix 1 of the 90 page document I linked has exactly this information.
They also discuss it in detail, with citations of sources:
> Eurostat’s definition of rape is broad: there is no need for force
to be involved for the sexual act to be defined as rape, only a
lack of valid consent. However, many countries lack the
prerequisites for specifying how many such rapes are reported,
as they have a narrower definition of rape in their national
legislation. According to an analysis by the European Institute
for Gender Equality (EIGE) from 2016, only seven countries in
Europe had consent-based legislation. However, most countries
did have various forms of exception to the need for the use of
force, such as a victim who was sleeping or heavily intoxicated
at the time of the incident. In one third of the countries
analysed, some form of violence or threat was required for the
act to be classified as rape. The European countries also differed
in terms of the sexual acts included under rape in their national
legislation. In 17 of the 30 countries encompassed by the study,
only sexual intercourse was included in the definition of rape
So - you are just repeating what the Swedish crime council says?
Let's look at the Appendix you cite. They have 4 sections and 5 big paragraphs of text explaining Sweden's rape definition. Then, they have a table giving rape definitions in other countries. First on the list is Belgium - a measly couple of sentences. Sweden's law covers threats of violence, sex acts that aren't penetration, unlawful coercion, and statutory rape. By contrast, Belgium's couple of sentences just cover sexual penetration without consent. Yes, Sweden's law definitely seems broader than Belgium's.
But wait! If you go to wikipedia "Rape in Belgium" and click on the source for their definition, you can see the Belgium Penal code[1]. If you translate from French to English (let it load) and ctrl+f for "rape" you can find that sure enough Belgium penal code has rape definitions for unlawfully obtaining consent, non-penetrative sex acts, and statutory rape. So, tell me how is Sweden's definition of rape broader than Belgium's?
In my opinion, if the government bureaucrats in charge of preventing crime are explaining to you that the super-high rape rate isn't a problem and is actually a right-wing conspiracy - that deserves a bit more skepticism than just uncritically repeating the summary they give.
This lists what is counted as rape, and what is counted as other related definitions like "indecent assault with violence or threat" in Belgium.
So, non-penetrative sex acts are not classed as rape. So if you compare "number of rapes" between two countries, some things will be counted in one country that aren't in another. Your evidence against this appears to be Ctrl-F in a Google translation? That's not really how this works.
You seem simultaneously really invested in this, and at the same time not really willing to engage with the slightest bit of complexity when comparing crime statistics across mutiple countries.
Belgium's penal code has multiple definitions of rape including non-consensual acts of a sexual nature. Non-penetrative sex acts can be considered rape in both Sweden and Belgium. I ask again, how are Sweden's laws broader than Belgium.
You claim Sweden's rape laws are broader and that's why Sweden has a higher rape rate - but you can't point out how Sweden's laws are broader or quantify the extent to which the difference in definition contributes to the difference in rape rate. You are making claims that you don't even attempt to defend.
You write, sneeringly, that my evidence is Ctrl+f of a Google translation. A better way to phrase this is, when I consider the claim that Sweden has a more expansive definition of rape than Belgium, I look at Sweden's laws and then I look at Belgium's and don't see the difference. By contrast, you repeat the talking points of the Swedish government as they explain to you why they aren't responsible for their poor performance.
Finally, I've repeatedly acknowledged that comparing statistics is complex. As I wrote previously my comparison of reported rates - that has the advantage of being simple and objective (we can tell if it's true or false). Your method is to say "well, maybe different countries count differently, and maybe Sweden really trusts their police and other Europeans don't, and maybe the laws are different, and..." Yeah, maybe - but you don't have any examples or evidence of any of that and you don't even try to find it. Maybe all of that stuff is true and Sweden is even worse than it appears!
The irony is that countries that think women's rights are important will have high rape statistics compared to countries that don't think women's rights are all that important. The countries that think women's rights are important will also have less actual rapes.
> - first, which jurisdictions in Europe would consolidate 30 rapes into a single rape count?
The Wikipedia link I mentioned says "In many other countries only a single offence would be counted in such a situation.[23][13][24][15][16]"
I verified the first three of those:
[23] is by "Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention in Stockholm", and it seems you've decided that is not a reputable source.
[13] says: "Other countries may employ more restrictive methods of counting. In extreme cases only a single offence will be counted, and this seems to be the situation in at least 16 European countries according the Council of Europe’s presentation (Council of Europe 1999:1.C.1.1)."
[24] gives an example of how Sweden differ from Norway and Denmark: "Furthermore, if a woman is subjected to repeated rapes during the same day by the same perpetrator, this may be registered as one or several crimes, depending on whether it is possible to distinguish each separate act. In Denmark and Norway, the statistics refer to cases. In general, one case will be opened for each victim, so the statistics do not indicate the actual number of rapes."
> Second, do you have any reason to think that the daily rape of wives by their husbands drives the high rape count in Sweden?
I have no reason to single out any particular factor. Rather, I am pointing out that your claim that Sweden is the top of Europe for rape is very difficult to support, and comparing raw numbers is effectively meaningless.
> I'm trying to imagine what you think is going on - the wife drops in to the police station to say "Hello, for the past thirty days my husband has been raping me"
That's an argument by incredulity.
I found the paper by von Hofer (the [13] above) to be quite interesting because it addresses a similar example.
Did you know that during one month in 1993 the number of rape reports in Sweden went from 150 to 270?
Quoting von Hofer: the high figure recorded in 1993 is in large part the result of a single report relating to a young male victim who had been sexually abused by his stepfather over a 10-year period. This very special case describes in a nutshell a number of the characteristics typical of Swedish crime statistics:
] it is the number of ‘alleged’ offences that is counted, not victims or cases; the victim was not a female, but rather a male;
] none of the offences had been committed during 1993, but rather over the course of several years prior to this: the increase in rape offences in 1993 and the subsequent reduction is thus in part illusory, being the result of this ‘over-reporting’ in 1993;
I also found it hard to imagine, but the point is, it happens. Don't use your incredulity as your simple reason to reject expert opinion.
> It's also an obvious rhetorical trick to compare present day rapes in Sweden to archaic laws that existed in the US until ~50 years ago
] For instance, a person in Oklahoma can not charge her/his spouse for rape if she/he is compelled to submit due to drugs "administered by or with the privity of the accused as a means of forcing the victim to submit", or when she/he is unconscious, as these situations are dealt under subsection (A) of Section 1111 which define rape as intercourse "with a male or female who is not the spouse of the perpetrator".
In Sweden, that counts as rape. In Oklahoma, it's not rape.
> Have you done that?
That's an obvious rhetorical trick too.
I don't think you've done it either. Nor even read the sources Wikipedia cites, which is certainly easier to do.
First, I should say that my account has been flagged for participating in a flamewar due to my responses in this thread. While crime in Sweden is a subject I am very much interested in, it seems my discussion of the topic is not appreciated on HackerNews. As I don't want to be banned, I will refrain from commenting any further in this thread - sorry.
There's something of an elusive aspect to this argument. When I say that Sweden is the regional leader for rape I mean that Sweden's reported rape count is higher than any other country in Europe. When you say that this is a "deliberate misreading" what you mean is that maybe, in some countries you can't name, they have different laws and reporting aggregations, and maybe those differences affect the reported numbers in ways you can't quantify, and maybe that means Sweden doesn't really have the most rapes in Europe. Yes, that's true, but not really meaningful. Maybe Sweden has more.
I'm sure you'll object to my characterization. Your Wikipedia source listed an expert saying that there were 16 countries in Europe who would aggregate multiple rapes into a single offense! But in reply, I would say that the paper[1] linked to doesn't name these countries and it is more than 20 years out of date (the paper cites a European Council that took place in 1999 for this claim). Sweden's laws regarding rape have changed in the last 20 years, have the laws of these other unnamed countries changed?
This is what I mean by being elusive. If you told me that in Sweden X would count as rape and in Belgium X would not be rape, then I'd google it and see if sources on Belgium law confirmed that X is not rape. Then I'd see if we could quantify how many rapes X contributed relative to Belgium, and so on. But instead, all I get from Swedish rape apologists is that there are some unknown countries and unknown ways that mean Sweden's apparently high rape statistics aren't really an issue.
Likewise, the incident you mentioned from 1993. Is that what you are saying explains the current rape rates? Does it explain part of it? Can you quantify it? Or is this just some other observation you can make to obfuscate the issue?
This is the same point with regards to trust in the police. Maybe trust in police contributes to a high rape rate, but you have absolutely no reason to think so. You just throw out "Maybe this" style speculation - and yes, maybe that's relevant, but you should probably try to figure out if it is relevant and how before just tossing it out as if it explained anything.
Again, I'm sure you'll object - you provided that statista link showing women trust the police. But did you even read it? "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes."
19% of Swedish women think the police are doing a good job (from 2016) solving crime and most people think they are doing a bad job. So that is supposed to be evidence that Swedish women's faith in police drives them to report rapes more frequently than the rest of Europe? Huh? I'm not even sure how I should respond to arguments like this because first, it's less than half of what you need - you need to show that Swedish women trust police more than the rest of Europe, and second that trust in police drives rape reporting. This doesn't compare to the rest of Europe and it doesn't establish the connection to rape reporting. Second, the link itself says the opposite of what you use it to support - most Swedish women do not have faith that the police will do a good job.
Finally, you conclude by saying that you're not going to be my research while I just "Ask Questions". This is a fitting end because you again repeat left wing tropes wi...
> When you say that this is a "deliberate misreading" what you mean is that maybe, in some countries you can't name,
I named two - Denmark and Norway.
> Your Wikipedia source listed an expert
Wikipedia gives several different sources. I verified the first three contain the appropriate supporting information.
> doesn't name these countries
Except that one of the sources explicitly named Norway and Denmark.
> all I get from Swedish rape apologists is that there are some unknown countries and unknown ways
Except that I gave a specific example of how Sweden is different from Norway and Denmark.
Why should I think Belgium and Sweden are more similar than Sweden and Norway?
Why should I think Greece and Sweden are more similar?
And you can clearly see from that example that reporting methods are not quantified in the law, so looking only to Control-F the law isn't enough.
> Sweden's laws regarding rape have changed in the last 20 years, have the laws of these other unnamed countries changed?
Is your thesis that all European countries have not only the same definition of rape but also the same reporting methods?
And that the multiple independent sources through the decades which say they are different, are wrong?
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Where is your evidence? If it's so apparently wrong, where are the published scholarly papers which show BRÅ and other experts use the wrong scales? Why is it limited to right-wingers and random internet commenters?
> Second, the link itself says the opposite of what you use it to support - most Swedish women do not have faith that the police will do a good job.
Take a look at the table again and see that you've misread it.
Here's the data:
Women Men
Very high trust 8% 6%
High trust 41% 26% <--- see this one?
Neither trust 22% 23%
nor distrust
Little trust 20% 28%
Very little 8% 16%
trust
In Sweden, women trust the police more than men.
Since you haven't read the basic papers cited by Wikipedia, since you've misrepresented or ignored what I've read, and since you can't read a data table, I don't think you should be so sure of your ability to do research on this topic.
> has more or less to do with Sweden's high rape rates than the counting and definitional things you can't describe?
One of the problems with JAQing off is these answers have long ago been addressed, which means you don't actually care about the answers.
FWIW, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crime-sweden-rape-capital-... : "Statistical evidence shows that rape in Sweden is not on the rise. Reported cases have remained steady for almost a decade", including the period before the recent wave of immigrants.
Repeating these questions at this point is pretty hard to distinguish from baseless right-wing racist fearmongering.
Okay, okay. I made a mistake and looked at your comment and now I can't help but reply to it. I should know better, but I just can't resist the bait.
You say that you "named two countries - Denmark and Norway" - presumably you mean that these are countries where multiple rapes are aggregated into a single instance. Rather, as the Amnesty International report puts it Denmark reports statistics on rape-cases, not rape incidents - quoting the report from footnote 24 "In Denmark and Norway, the statistics refer to cases. In general, one case will be opened for each victim, so the statistics do not indicate the actual number
of rapes."
Okay, lets consider that for a moment. On Denmark's government website[1] where they report rape statistics (the English version of their website). There, they write "The statistics show the number of offences of criminal code and special laws/legislation reported to the police or discovered by the police itself." They also note that their laws on reporting rape, and what classifies as rape, changed in 2013 - perhaps that explains the discrepancy with the Amnesty International report. If you look in Eurostat[2] you can see that Denmark's rape rate was ~15 per 100k in 2013 and is at 38 by 2020. So, no. Denmark's stats seem to be on crimes reported to the police per their current live government website. You can query the tool here[3] to see that the rapes reported on this page match is reported in Eurostat.
Norway too reports on "offenses reported to the police."[4] If you look at the table there for rape, and divide by Norway's population, you can find approximately the same numbers reported in Eurostat.
Let's recall that not only are you wrong about Denmark and Norway, you also didn't even try to answer the relevant questions. Suppose it were true that Denmark consolidated all reports of rape to a single instance - how does that change things? Again, the best you can do is that maybe, in some circumstances, some countries count differently. I tend to think the reason you are hesitant to be specific is that whenever you are specific I can just look up the specifics and see that you're wrong.
You allege that I'm claiming there is some kind of conspiracy here. This is typical of your arrogant and lazy style of commenting. Rather than read your own sources or look at official government sites, you skim wikipedia and throw out "What ifs" and "Maybes". When I point out that you are completely wrong and directly refuted by official sources, you go to the "You're a racist conspiracy theorist" defense. Perhaps you've tried that in real life and you've noticed that people stop talking when you try this, and you've assumed that meant it was a winning argument. In reality, I think it's more of a tell that you don't know what you're talking about and you don't bother to try and find out - and that's why people stop talking.
You refer again to the statista table as if this were meaningful. You do not compare trust in the police in Sweden across Europe. Worse, you don't have any theory that predicts "If Swedish women trust the police more than Swedish men then Swedish women will report more rapes than any other country in Europe." The theory sounds like nonsense when you read it, so why are you showing me evidence that Swedish women trust the police more than men like it confirms anything? As I previously quoted from your source - the majority of Swedes do not have confidence that the police will solve crimes. Quoting it again "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes."
You write that Belgium's reporting method is not written in their law, so t...
> If I don't trust you, when you repeat the nonsense from Sweden's government, why do you think I'd trust a random blogger?
It really does seem like you're right-wing conspiracy theorist, given the diverse set of sources you don't trust. And I cited far more than BRÅ.
> skim wikipedia
I'm saying you didn't do the first steps of checking the supporting resources on Wikipedia.
I go to Google Scholar. And I pointed you towards some of them, so you know I'm not only skimming Wikipedia.
What scholarly resources I can find substantially support the conclusions BRÅ reported, and include sources which are different from, and even predating that report.
Point me to a actual scholarly paper which substantiates the substance of your argument. Scholars love to demonstrate how others are wrong.
I see you mentioned "On Denmark's government website".
You'll note we live in 2022, and you must surely know that Denmark changed their laws in the last few years to be more aligned with Sweden's, in part because of the Amnesty International report "Time for Change: Justice for Rape Survivors in the Nordic Countries". (I learned all this by reading papers found through Google Scholar, so it wasn't hard.)
Before then, Danish law required the prosecutor to demonstrate the accused rapist used violence, threats, etc.
Now, that's great - Danish law got better. And as as a result, your #1 has the note "A new concept of consent regarding rape is taking effect from 1st of January 2021 which has resulted in new ways for the police to register offences regarding rape. This has to be taken into account when comparing data over time."
Which is why if you extend it back using "Get your own statistics in the Statbank about Reported criminal offences (STRAF11)" you'll see a clear trend upwards in 'Sexual offenses, total' starting in 2021. (Compare 6,320 in 2018 and 5,548 in 2019 to 8,788 in the last four quarters.)
Which is what I would expect from broadening the definition of rape.
So great, perhaps Sweden and Denmark have identical definitions and statistics now.
But the baseless right-wing claims that Sweden is the rape capital of Europe, etc., came out in 2017, so you need to be talking about how they were then.
And the resources I linked to - all of which you deride as outdated, biased, or otherwise nonsense - support the analysis in the BRÅ report.
You keep returning to the idea that I'm a conspiracy theorist because I "don't trust your sources". To be clear - there is one source that I don't trust, which is the Swedish Council on Crime Prevention (BRA). I don't trust them because there is a statistic that makes them look bad, to wit Sweden has the highest rape rate in Europe, and they have a convoluted explanation for why that stat isn't a problem. This seems like a pretty straightforward case of an organization spinning problematic stats to make themselves look better.
When I say that I don't trust Snopes - I'm not alleging that Snopes is involved in a conspiracy with BRA to cover up rape stats. Instead, what I think, is that the freelance bloggers churning out Snopes articles on trending topics are motivated to quickly produce articles. The Snopes blogger googles "Sweden rape capital true" and gets BRA's explanation and then copies and pastes it plus some graphs. Now, I'm using "copies and pastes" a bit loosely, metaphorically, but I definitely see some of the same language in that Snopes article that I have seen and heard from Swedish government officials - it is very much the same argument and it is very much wrong for the same reasons. Likewise, when I say that I don't trust you when you repeat the same argument, I am not saying that I think you are in a conspiracy with the Swedish government - I am saying that you are repeating the same original argument from BRA which is wrong.
Just consider the course of this argument - "Sweden has a higher rape rate because they count every individual rape whereas other countries aggregate multiple rapes into a single count." Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences. "Norway." Nope, they count offences. "This wikipedia article says an Amnesty International report says that a European Council says that in 1999 16 countries counted cases rather than offences." Okay, well that seems to be out of date - you can look at the government websites and Eurostat. "You are a racist conspiracy theorist." I am not saying that there is a conspiracy or that mainstream sources are wrong (they all agree completely with me), or that everyone is wrong but me. I'm saying that BRA spins the stats that make them look bad and you are uncritically repeating BRA.
Rather than investigate what is true, you try and find ways that you might be right. The question of whether or not Denmark reports offences or cases is a good example. I want to know, so I go to Denmark's current website on criminal statistics and look at their reporting policy. I do this not because I'm a genius but because it is obvious if I want to know Denmark's crime reporting policy I should look at Denmark's crime reporting policy. By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes. That's not a good way of investigating - unless, you are just trying to find some source that supports your current claims (and who cares if it's not current, not an official policy, not from the Danish government, and not connected to the figures we are currently debating).
You write that perhaps Denmark changed their laws and/or their reporting practices and so they are perhaps they are up to date with Sweden now but then you say the important claim is whether they were up to date in 2017. First, this disagreement began when I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017. Second, in 2017 Sweden had the highest rape rate in Europe. We have data for 2021 and Sweden still has the highest rape rate in Europe. You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now, the fact that they might not have had parity in 2017 means it's wrong to say Sweden is the regional leader for rape now. I suppose you think it...
] In 1996, the average number of rape offences registered in 35 European countries was 6.6 per 100,000 of population (see Table I), whilst Sweden presented a level of 18.2 per 100,000 – almost three times the average
Do you accept that that was true?
If so, why were Sweden's rape statistics in 1996 so much higher than the rest of Europe's?
Why couldn't those systemic factors still be true now?
And even more so, as Sweden's definition of what "rape" means has expanded.
Thus, in 1996 it was 3x and now it's, what, 4x that of Europe's average? And you think it's some recent event which caused the change, rather than being a long-time difference between the countries?
Are the Snopes writers wrong when they wrote "Reported cases have remained steady for almost a decade"? You suggested the "recently admitted hundreds of thousands of disproportionately male immigrants" affected the statistics, but if those statistics didn't change then it's clearly not caused by your hypothesis.
Especially if the "objective comparison (reported figures to reported figures)" shows Sweden's rape leadership status was already in place in the 1990s.
> Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences.
When did they start counting offenses?
> By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes.
The Amnesty International report was from 2008; 14 years ago.
You're thinking of van Hofer (2000). Which gives the example of how a single report in 1993 nearly doubled Sweden's rape statistics for that month, and shows why your argument based on incredulity isn't a strong one.
Why has the several-fold difference between Sweden's rape statistics and the average for Europe existed for 20+ years?
> That's not a good way of investigating
While you seemingly don't investigate at all. You JAQ-off then criticize any answers you get as not being good enough for you. You misread graphs. You get citations wrong.
> I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017.
Sweden has seemingly been the regional leader for rape for at least 25 years.
And you're only concerned about 2022?
Why is that? Do you really think the are so disconnected that you can ignore history?
Surely you must know that an internet comment board for computer nerds isn't a good place to find the active investigators in the field of international rape statistics gathering who will be able to give you the latest statistics.
Why can't you point to scholarly publications of people who have demonstrated that these older publications are no longer valid? Surely the Danish or German equivalents have the expertise to identify the flaws, and reasons to publish the information. (As I recall, BRÅ said if Sweden followed Germany's methodology then Sweden would be about average for Europe. Why would Germany accept that sort of shade if it were wrong?)
While I can easily find experts willing to write things like "the Nordic countries have a broad judicial definition of rape that includes actions that are not labelled as sexual crimes in many other countries, thus leading to a higher number of reported crimes." (at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1... ), supporting my statement that "Sweden's rape definition is broader, and includes interactions which in many other countries would not be considered a rape" - a view you refused to believe I had researched.
> You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now ...
> But in reply, I would say that the paper[1] linked to doesn't name these countries and it is more than 20 years out of date (the paper cites a European Council that took place in 1999 for this claim)
It cites the "European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics".
> For example, 16 countries stated that they apply a principal offence rule and 20 stated they do not. In addition, multiple offences are counted as two or more
offences in 20 countries but as one offence in 15 countries. Most countries, 31, count an offence committed by more than one person as one offence.
This is in accord with the paper from 2000, and the statements appear to still hold.
Remember, it pointed out that the rape statistics in Sweden were 3x that of Europe, back in 2000.
And it pointed out how a single report in 1993 nearly doubled the rape statistics for that month.
Very weird that the bombings and violence happen in the cities yet the vast majority of SD voters live deep in the countryside or in much smaller towns.
Something is fishy… maybe the real issue is that people in the country-side everywhere in the world (US, France, Portugal, Sweden, etc…) feel like they are losing and have been losing for a few decades now.
No they are not. They should blame many things for that. Globalization, Government policies towards the inner regions and to some extent even themselves. I grew up in the interior and it was awful in part because the people made it awful.
So you would consider the whole region of Skäne and Blekinge a Mälmo suburb? I spent many hours looking at the results maps last monday and to me it was obvious the percentages were much higher in countryside.
Didn't look far up north to be honest but most of the population lives in the south anyway.
> As the article mentions, one of the main topics of this election was "law and order", not "the countryside is losing".
And who loves law and order more than close minded people?
Another big topic of the elections was the energy crisis and the price of gas… who loves their cheap gas in Sweden? Those cadillacs and heated houses are not cheap to fuel.
I wonder if HN even knows most Cadillacs in the world are in middle Sweden. Swedish Hillbilly culture just blows my mind
The "law" and police are regularly used as an instrument of oppression.
Certainly you know gay clubs used to be raided and gay people arrested and beaten up by the police not until that long ago.
In Russia today it's the police making sure no one speaks their mind.
The Uyghurs in China are persecuted by Chinese law and order.
Blacks in the deep south a century ago? And goes on and on and on…
But yeah… historically if you have been a white straight cis man the law has maybe not have been that mean towards you since the end of feudalism. Other people though…
On the one hand law and order are the solution that democratic societies based on rule of law have found for fighting crime and solving conflicts. It’s quite literally the best system humanity has come up with. The alternatives are militias, mob rule, gangs or anarchy, where gay people, blacks, Russians and Uyghurs don’t fare better.
On the other hand, one could also rediscover the benefits of law and order by getting hit by a bullet in one of the by now notorious Swedish gang wars.
This is a rather obscure US and possibly UK concept which I’ve barely heard of in Europe.
I’d rather not assume law doesn’t mean law and order doesn’t mean order because the eternal D vs. R divide transforms normal words into a bat to smack one’s opponent over the face with.
No one is against actual law and order. I'm just against people that support law and order as policy.
Like harsher punishments and more power to the police, that sort of thing.
If you can't understand that after 3 comments what can I do? It's not hard to understand. It's different things. I never told you I want rape and riots, why are you distorting my words? I said people to whom "law and order" appeals to as policy are close minded people.
I'm personally much more afraid of any Raggare in the Swedish country-side than I've ever been of any immigrant in Stockholm. But I'm also an immigrant in Stockholm and you are not so you will never understand. Never. Just imagine knowing that 1 every 4 males around you basically voted to see people like you gone (if not worse) and you don't even know which one of the 4 it is.
I didn't say if you are against crime.
But who usually gets behind "law and order" as a doctrine? Close minded people.
See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32943535
The article is about how disenfranchised Swedish citizens are tired of being victimized by crime and violence and having their legitimate concerns for safety be invalidated and ignored by false accusations of racism... and you turn around and continue to ignore what they're telling you to instead insinuate some other imaginary real reason for their voting changes.
Maybe try actually listening to people and trying to help, instead of making up a cynical reason why they're bad people whose complaints can be ignored? If you read an article about a women's group concerned about sexual assault, would you be so quick to disregard their statements and try to find a hidden "real issue" to shift blame to?
I'm an immigrant in Sweden but according to you I'm just coming here making evil comments because I have nothing better to do. While the reality of the situation is that I've given this much thought and have personal relationships to many SD voters in the country side. Not the best relationships sometimes. Also these are not the most self-aware people in the world in 99% of cases.
Just questioning the causality link between the bombings in the cities and the rise of SD.
These people for the most part don't even like city dwellers. The president of the party doesn't even live in a major metropolitan area.
Why are they so worried about gangs and bombings when those are for the most part urban problems?
" while far from American levels of gun homicide, is extreme for Europe "
I can't recall the exact number, but it went something like "remove top 10 dangerous cities from violent crime statistics in the USA, it pretty much becomes like a standard European country".
How has it been debunked?
The only substantive thing your politifact link points out is that the US is not the #1 for murders. The poster never asserted this. As far as the effect of eliminating the top ten cities? Your link doesn’t address it.
The idea that cities are more violent than less populated areas of the USA is a fascinating myth. One factor is that cities release their crimes stats earlier in the year. So newspapers write articles about those stats, and then when the rural stats come out later the topic of crime stats is exhausted. Another factor is that most reporters live in cities and reporters tend prioritize their surroundings.
The counties with the highest murder rate in CA are Trinity, Kern, Lake, Del Norte, and San Joaquin. They're about twice as murderous as Alameda (Oakland).
A confounding factor is that smaller counties have a larger margin of error, but the overall trend is still clear. Another confounding factor is that this is by county and not city, but if cities were much worse than their surroundings they'd dominate the per capita metric.
Interesting! But I took a closer look at the source behind those statistics and it's consistent with the California data I posted.
It turns out there are seven states with very dangerous metro areas (Missouri, Illinois, Maryland, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) and eight states with dangerous metro areas (South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Nevada). The remaining states are much safer, with metro rates comparable to the nationwide nonmetro average.
Some of that matches with the conventional wisdom (e.g. Chicago is dangerous), but I think those nationwide statistics are quite deceptive. I think it's quite interesting that a California metro area is safer than a California nonmetro area, and both are nearly twice as safe as a Louisiana metro.
In the light of the situation, the craziest thing about contemporary Sweden (and a pet-peve of mine to lament about) is that people's addresses (and a lot more private information such as who else is living in their apartment, as well as where exactly it is located in a building) are available to anybody through dedicated search engines. The only way to be excluded is if you are already having a significant threat against you (i.e. your current life is already "destroyed" , you likely had to move elsewhere etc), or if you are working in a few delicate professions.
One would think that people in Sweden would see a connection between the several weekly cases of shootings against apartments and detonations in buildings, and the accessibility of the information mentioned above. But no. There isn't even a debate. It's something I absolutely cannot understand.
Historically, transparency and openness has been crucial elements of Swedish culture and societal structure. However, it's a luxury which the country, in the light of today's situation, simply cannot afford to have to the extend it had historically. But no one seems to actually see this. It's drives me kinda nuts.
80 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadThis type of reality distortion field aggressively pushes people away and paints liberals in a bad light.
"The explosions were confirmed by police, who reported several buildings with broken windows at Willow Street and damage to a business’s window at Fulton Street; no injuries have been reported.
Explosions were also heard in District 9, which includes the Mission, according to one Twitter user. That report has yet to be confirmed by police."
"Police Captain Derrick Jackson of Northern Station confirmed there was “a small device that was set off in the area of 355 Fulton between Franklin and Gough.”
“There was damage to a business plate glass window, but no civilians were injured,” said Jackson in an email to the Hayes Valley Safe community group."
"A San Francisco police spokesperson told The Standard that on Saturday at approximately 3:50 p.m., police officers assigned to Tenderloin Station responded to Willow Street and Polk Street to a report of a possible explosion.
“When officers arrived on scene, they found that several building windows on Willow Street were broken and a parked vehicle was damaged,” the spokesperson said in an email."
I do wonder if it was a firework versus an IED, personally an IED would be more concerning.
The author missed this shot on this one. :)
Primary amount of gun crime is suicide in the usa. When you exclude these sideline issues, comparing gun suicides to bombings is silly. Sweden and the usa are quite similar for gun homicide. Moreover, they are for exactly the same reason.
>Among shooting suspects, 85 percent are first- or second-generation immigrants, according to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, as immigrant neighborhoods have become hotbeds for gang crime.
Sweden is a noob when it comes to immigration. Canada is pro-tier. USA isn't doing so good despite lots of experience.
More importantly, Turkey accepted far greater numbers of immigrants from the arab spring and doesn't have the problems Sweden/germany and north america has. why is very important and culture is not the answer. Canada is bottom tier compared to Turkey when it comes to immigration. They had multiple crusades through their country.
>So how did Sweden’s famously liberal electorate usher in a party with roots on the extreme right? In a word: denial.
Totally disagree. Denial is what the left wing is experiencing. The right-wing has absolutely no denial. Sweden tried to do the right thing, give people in shitty war torn middle east a new life. It blew up in their face because they totally don't understand. Worse yet, the anti-immigration folks also don't understand. So the problem is about to exacerbate. If you think it's bad now...
>Many immigrants have integrated well into Swedish society, but too many have ended up in segregated suburbs, where unemployment is high and crime is rampant.
To illustrate from history the problem. The city of detroit had this problem. Mass migration of poor black people from the south resulted in exactly the same thing. Bill Clinton many decades later failed to fix the inner city ghettos.
To say in 1966 that many black people have integrated well into detroit society is about the equivalent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot
>Sweden is one of the most generous welfare states in the world: Although these neighborhoods are marked by high unemployment, there is no American-level material deprivation.
#theproblem
>Yet police are struggling to maintain control of some 60 immigrant-majority neighborhoods—officially labeled “vulnerable areas”—where gangs and clans compete with the state for local authority.
Funny how nobody uses the word ghetto anymore. The swedish people have intentionally pushed these immigrants into ghettos.
>In the meantime, those elites dismissed any criticism of large-scale immigration as “racism.”
For almost a decade now, everyone is a racist. This is a political ploy to silence political opponents. Every single death from a bomb or otherwise is on these people's karma.
The beauty of this absolutely idiotic political ploy the left-wing has been pushing is that it comes at a cost to themselves. Your political opponents love when you punch yourself in the face. They'll sit back and watch you keep punching yourself in the face. Greta came up a couple times in the article and she's a great example of political activists punching themselves in the face. Greta's political opponents gladly showcased her every opportunity they can because she was nonstop punching herself in the face.
I don't need a crystal ball to know Sweden will do absolutely nothing to resolve the problem. So in a few decades and an awful lot more deaths of mostly immigrants will we see the fix arrive.
You can basically apply that to any era and find the same. However, after time those immigrants contribute and make something. Irish/Italians made the east coast. Germans built the midwest. Jews built Hollywood. etc etc.
Every single big racial migration event has in time been a hugely beneficial thing.
The problem Sweden is learning. Their welfare system and large government is preventing the newcomers from starting.
Do you mind explaining what you are referring to? I'm a bit ignorant of this era of US history. I thought the east coast was the "original" US - that is, the thirteen colonies. Specifically New York was most definitely "made" by this point, even before the US was a thing. The New York stock exchange was founded in 1792, just 16 years after the country was founded. And trade was always big in New York. I don't know much about the rest of the east coast so I may be missing some larger historical context here but I was under the impression that NY was the most important sate by far on the east coast and continues to be so.
The Amish have also been in America longer than Italians as a prominent immigrant group.
They haven't "integrated" as a function of time in the sense that's being discussed here.
All such historical comparisons are just cherry picking, or finding historical comparisons that fit the author's biases.
One could also claim that Sweden will eventually end up splitting apart along religious lines, as happened in the Indian subcontinent with India and Pakistan.
The author of the article is talking about 'integration' and such. I wonder how many people on HN, who are probably natural citizens, actually integrate with their society? I would guess that I'm not by many standards.
Now lets say we want to go to the extent of getting some antisocial hackers integrated into society and contributing toward progress. What does that mean? It's not just speaking the language.
Something the author clearly doesn't know is that Turkey took in far greater numbers than they ever did. Turkey also has far more experience with immigration. Turkey also has tremendously higher immigrant crime than USA and Sweden. Yet where's the bombing exactly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#/media/F...
So what gives? What is integration?
Well maslows heirarchy of needs is explanatory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...
Your most basic needs like food and water require you to have a job.
So do these immigrants have jobs? No they dont. The article says unemployment is high.
Is this because they are lazy? No certainly not. Now they go on welfare in order to live, which the author touts but that's not good. That's very bad. They need a job asap. This is the key spot that must be worked on and welfare is the opposite of what you want to do.
I bet you can see where this goes. Libertarianism and smaller government. Do ANYTHING to get them employed and the government can't be involved for or against. Deregulate whatever you have to. Make these problematic suburbs into free trade zones if you need to.
The generation born in the '50s and '60s is retiring now, and it's much larger than subsequent generations. Retirement age is 67. Their healthcare and pension is paid for by the working population, who hope the next generation will pass on the torch.
That's just not going to work if the elderly equal or outnumber the working-aged population. Liberal immigration is at least a plan to avert this demographical trainwreck of a disaster. Is it sustainable? Is it even a good plan? Dunno. But the other option isn't pretty either.
>The generation born in the '50s and '60s is retiring now, and it's much larger than subsequent generations. Retirement age is 67. Their healthcare and pension is paid for by the working population, who hope the next generation will pass on the torch.
Are you suggesting it is a good idea to replace the native population to support the Swedish welfare system? Additionally, the article states that many of these immigrant are themselves using the welfare system. Wouldn't it be better to bite the bullet and let the country reach its carrying capacity naturally even if it results in some pain? I don't think this can be explained from an economic perspective.
I think the aging population simply acted as an allowing factor that made the discussion viable politically. But I think ultimately it happened as part of liberal immigration ideology itself. From that standpoint, the immigration policy is still largely a success. If all life is equal and everyone deserves the human rights, then from that prospective, even if the policy has issues, those issues do not outweigh the total net gain of humanity. Even if it comes at a cost for some people.
>But the other option isn't pretty either.
Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
"Replace" certainly seems like loaded language. I believe the intent is to bolster the younger cohorts to try to avoid too heavy a generational imbalance.
I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, I'm suggesting it's an idea.
> Can you explain what the other option is and why you think it would be pretty?
One other option is to go the route of Italy or Greece, run the welfare system at a massive imbalance, and make up for it with public debt.
The other options are all some form of breach of the social contract. Either increasing the burden on the working age demographic past what they'll accept, or the eventual bankruptcy of the pension and healthcare system. Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
The thing is a social contract that can't actually exist doesn't matter. If we all agree to not work but still receive benefits we haven't made a meaningful social contract. Breaching that contract is probably the best thing to do. Also, its difficult to evaluate exactly what the contract is here: is it that we all agree to a welfare state (roughly speaking) or is it that in the event that it is possible to have a welfare state then we will have it? I think the latter is more reasonable.
>Pension levels would have to be lowered to the point where the elderly would have to come out of retirement and re-join the workforce to survive, despite a lifetime of making payments into the system and promises they'll be returned.
The way I see it the point you're making here is that since they put in, they deserve to take out, as their input was when the system was still working and the contract thus in place. And that's true to a degree, but people implicitly acknowledge of and take a risk when they contribute to these systems. Did anyone think that in the event of a massive famine (for an extreme example) that they will magically be paid back on their contribution? The decline of the working population is maybe not something they thought about, but it comes implicitly as part of a general acknowledgement that a given system only exists withing a certain interval of environments.
All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
The question everyone at working age will face is why they should put money into a system when what they're getting back is less than they put in. For old times sake?
People may forgive hardships when there is some external factor, but this is something that's been known for decades.
> All this said, you didn't explicitly state that you believe this contract should be upheld at all costs, but that seems to be the only case where that point would be relevant in the first place.
I don't know if there is a good solution to this. I'm not sure what the alternative is. Grab a pointy stick, put a colander on your head and go full mad max?
This is a weak version of "uphold the social contract at all costs" mentality. Rather than uphold it because of the people that enacted the contract, we will uphold it because the people put in charge of upholding it want to stay in charge. Its a much more reasonable idea and if this is really the case then it's an unfortunate situation. That said I don't think its likely that the Swedish elderly are either contributing much to taxes or capable of revolting. The younger generations would actually react positively to it. For example I already have no trust that I will see a meaningful return on my social security "investment." I'd rather see it shut down than wait for the off chance that anything is left in 30 years.
I think democracies move too slowly to make changes like this, however. I don't think there is really any plan at all. I think that is ultimately the issue here. And unfortunately if the article is to be believed the "solution" of voting in what the article has called an extremist party may become reality. I think that's the real issue here. We can debate social contracts all we want but if an extremist party is voted in it shows that Sweden's plan was flawed from the outset.
You think the younger generations will think their parents getting completely shafted is a positive thing? Especially given many will end up supporting them financially (outside of the pension system)? I'm struggling to see how that would play out.
A timely subject now, but I'll always remember Queen Elizabeth pitching austerity to the British public while sitting in front of a solid gold piano.
Why the war in Ukraine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Cross
They already have the problem. Population decline is going to wreck Russia.
Eh? Sweden has 1.2 intentional homicide per 100,000 people. The US has 6.3 [1].
France and the UK have 1.2, Germany has 0.8, Japan has 0.3.
The US has 5.8 homicides using firearms only [2].
Fun(?) fact: in the US, about 1,000 per year are killed by police [3], which amounts to about 0.3 per 100,000. An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality_in_the_United...
This is a direct result of the larger population of armed murders in the US. "An American is about as likely to be killed by police as a Japanese person is to be killed by a murderer" is only true when you include armed robbers and murderers in the data.
The point of the post is the other stuff moreso.
This sounds like an important point. What exactly are the factors behind the difference?
https://bra.se/download/18.7d27ebd916ea64de5306c65f/16013936...
> Brå’s overall assessment of the review is that the differences between Sweden and other European countries as regards the incidence of rape are smaller than indicated by Eurostat’s report statistics. If the legal conditions and statistical methods had been the same as in Germany, Sweden would rank somewhere in the middle of the report statistics from Eurostat. Nor does Sweden stand out in FRA’s survey when it comes to the percentage of women who have stated that they have been raped at some point. Out of the total of 27 countries included in the survey, Sweden is among the 10 where the stated prevalence is between 10 and 12 percent. In other words, there is no support for the claim that Sweden deviates significantly from other countries in north-western Europe when it comes to the incidence of rape.
The thing you excerpted doesn't even make sense. Let's write <country's method of rape count>-<country being evaluated> - so, S-S is Sweden's measures of Sweden's rape count, and G-S is Germany's measure of Sweden's rape count. What this article is saying is that S-S is by far the highest rape count in Europe. G-S is significantly higher than G-G. But, if you were to go through all the countries of Europe, and find E-E then G-S would be somewhere in the middle. What? What kind of a methodology is this? How would Sweden rank if you took G-E for every country in Europe?
"Sure, we're a global leader in bombings. Yes, we're a regional leader in shooting murders. Yes, we're a regional leader in humiliation robberies targeting our children. And, yes, if you look at our official statistics we seem to be the regional leader in rapes as well - but this is a right-wing conspiracy because of this nonsense analysis!"
When that right-wing trope went around a few years ago, I learned that it was a deliberate misreading of the numbers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden . Some of the key points are:
If a women says her husband raped her every day for a month, how is that entered in the statistics?
In the US until about 50 years ago there was a "marital exemption" that allowed a husband to rape his wife, so the answer would have been 0.
In some jurisdictions it's counted as one rape report.
In Sweden it's counted as about 30 rapes. (That was an eye-opener to mean when I learned about it.)
Furthermore, Sweden's definition of "rape" is broader, and includes interactions which in many other countries would not be considered a rape.
Next, Sweden tallies rapes when reported, while in some countries they are tallied when prosecuted, which lowers the effective rape rate.
Additionally, rape victims are more likely to report the crime when they have respect and trust in the police, and when rape isn't treated as something to shame the victim about. This is the case in Sweden, so rape appears to be reported at a higher rate than many other countries.
The Wikipedia page lists more reasons why a cross-national comparison like "rape capital" is difficult to make.
It's also disingenuous to talk about how Sweden's rape definition is broader. Do you know that? Have you reviewed rape definitions throughout all of Europe, or are you just repeating what Sweden's crime council says? If you took Sweden's rape definition and applied to every other country, or any standard rape definition and applied it to every country, how would Sweden rank. Have you done that? Or...
When I write that Sweden is a regional leader in rape, what I mean is that Sweden's numbers, Sweden's rape stats, are higher than the numbers reported by every country in Europe. That's not perfect, and I agree that "rape capital" claims are complicated to evaluate - but it is first, true, and second an objective comparison (reported figures to reported figures). What you mean when you say this is a "right-wing trope" and a "deliberate misreading" is that there might exist measures, which you haven't shared or which are highly contrived, by which Sweden's rape rate is only in the top third or so of Europe.
You write that "rape victims are more likely to report the crime when they have respect and trust in the police" but this is just more misleading "Maybe this" type of stuff. Do Swedish women trust the police more than the women of other countries in Europe? Have you ever looked into that? Swedish police have extremely low clearance rates for rape - why would Swedish women have special trust in them?
Appendix 1 of the 90 page document I linked has exactly this information.
They also discuss it in detail, with citations of sources:
> Eurostat’s definition of rape is broad: there is no need for force to be involved for the sexual act to be defined as rape, only a lack of valid consent. However, many countries lack the prerequisites for specifying how many such rapes are reported, as they have a narrower definition of rape in their national legislation. According to an analysis by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) from 2016, only seven countries in Europe had consent-based legislation. However, most countries did have various forms of exception to the need for the use of force, such as a victim who was sleeping or heavily intoxicated at the time of the incident. In one third of the countries analysed, some form of violence or threat was required for the act to be classified as rape. The European countries also differed in terms of the sexual acts included under rape in their national legislation. In 17 of the 30 countries encompassed by the study, only sexual intercourse was included in the definition of rape
Let's look at the Appendix you cite. They have 4 sections and 5 big paragraphs of text explaining Sweden's rape definition. Then, they have a table giving rape definitions in other countries. First on the list is Belgium - a measly couple of sentences. Sweden's law covers threats of violence, sex acts that aren't penetration, unlawful coercion, and statutory rape. By contrast, Belgium's couple of sentences just cover sexual penetration without consent. Yes, Sweden's law definitely seems broader than Belgium's.
But wait! If you go to wikipedia "Rape in Belgium" and click on the source for their definition, you can see the Belgium Penal code[1]. If you translate from French to English (let it load) and ctrl+f for "rape" you can find that sure enough Belgium penal code has rape definitions for unlawfully obtaining consent, non-penetrative sex acts, and statutory rape. So, tell me how is Sweden's definition of rape broader than Belgium's?
In my opinion, if the government bureaucrats in charge of preventing crime are explaining to you that the super-high rape rate isn't a problem and is actually a right-wing conspiracy - that deserves a bit more skepticism than just uncritically repeating the summary they give.
1 - http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/loi_a1.pl?DETAIL=18...
https://resourcehub.bakermckenzie.com/en/resources/fighting-...
This lists what is counted as rape, and what is counted as other related definitions like "indecent assault with violence or threat" in Belgium.
So, non-penetrative sex acts are not classed as rape. So if you compare "number of rapes" between two countries, some things will be counted in one country that aren't in another. Your evidence against this appears to be Ctrl-F in a Google translation? That's not really how this works.
You seem simultaneously really invested in this, and at the same time not really willing to engage with the slightest bit of complexity when comparing crime statistics across mutiple countries.
You claim Sweden's rape laws are broader and that's why Sweden has a higher rape rate - but you can't point out how Sweden's laws are broader or quantify the extent to which the difference in definition contributes to the difference in rape rate. You are making claims that you don't even attempt to defend.
You write, sneeringly, that my evidence is Ctrl+f of a Google translation. A better way to phrase this is, when I consider the claim that Sweden has a more expansive definition of rape than Belgium, I look at Sweden's laws and then I look at Belgium's and don't see the difference. By contrast, you repeat the talking points of the Swedish government as they explain to you why they aren't responsible for their poor performance.
Finally, I've repeatedly acknowledged that comparing statistics is complex. As I wrote previously my comparison of reported rates - that has the advantage of being simple and objective (we can tell if it's true or false). Your method is to say "well, maybe different countries count differently, and maybe Sweden really trusts their police and other Europeans don't, and maybe the laws are different, and..." Yeah, maybe - but you don't have any examples or evidence of any of that and you don't even try to find it. Maybe all of that stuff is true and Sweden is even worse than it appears!
The Wikipedia link I mentioned says "In many other countries only a single offence would be counted in such a situation.[23][13][24][15][16]"
I verified the first three of those:
[23] is by "Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention in Stockholm", and it seems you've decided that is not a reputable source.
[13] says: "Other countries may employ more restrictive methods of counting. In extreme cases only a single offence will be counted, and this seems to be the situation in at least 16 European countries according the Council of Europe’s presentation (Council of Europe 1999:1.C.1.1)."
[24] gives an example of how Sweden differ from Norway and Denmark: "Furthermore, if a woman is subjected to repeated rapes during the same day by the same perpetrator, this may be registered as one or several crimes, depending on whether it is possible to distinguish each separate act. In Denmark and Norway, the statistics refer to cases. In general, one case will be opened for each victim, so the statistics do not indicate the actual number of rapes."
> Second, do you have any reason to think that the daily rape of wives by their husbands drives the high rape count in Sweden?
I have no reason to single out any particular factor. Rather, I am pointing out that your claim that Sweden is the top of Europe for rape is very difficult to support, and comparing raw numbers is effectively meaningless.
> I'm trying to imagine what you think is going on - the wife drops in to the police station to say "Hello, for the past thirty days my husband has been raping me"
That's an argument by incredulity.
I found the paper by von Hofer (the [13] above) to be quite interesting because it addresses a similar example.
Did you know that during one month in 1993 the number of rape reports in Sweden went from 150 to 270?
Quoting von Hofer: the high figure recorded in 1993 is in large part the result of a single report relating to a young male victim who had been sexually abused by his stepfather over a 10-year period. This very special case describes in a nutshell a number of the characteristics typical of Swedish crime statistics:
] it is the number of ‘alleged’ offences that is counted, not victims or cases; the victim was not a female, but rather a male;
] none of the offences had been committed during 1993, but rather over the course of several years prior to this: the increase in rape offences in 1993 and the subsequent reduction is thus in part illusory, being the result of this ‘over-reporting’ in 1993;
I also found it hard to imagine, but the point is, it happens. Don't use your incredulity as your simple reason to reject expert opinion.
> It's also an obvious rhetorical trick to compare present day rapes in Sweden to archaic laws that existed in the US until ~50 years ago
It's a rhetorical technique, yes. But it's not a disappearing trick. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_in_the_United_Sta... and see examples like:
] For instance, a person in Oklahoma can not charge her/his spouse for rape if she/he is compelled to submit due to drugs "administered by or with the privity of the accused as a means of forcing the victim to submit", or when she/he is unconscious, as these situations are dealt under subsection (A) of Section 1111 which define rape as intercourse "with a male or female who is not the spouse of the perpetrator".
In Sweden, that counts as rape. In Oklahoma, it's not rape.
> Have you done that?
That's an obvious rhetorical trick too.
I don't think you've done it either. Nor even read the sources Wikipedia cites, which is certainly easier to do.
&g...
There's something of an elusive aspect to this argument. When I say that Sweden is the regional leader for rape I mean that Sweden's reported rape count is higher than any other country in Europe. When you say that this is a "deliberate misreading" what you mean is that maybe, in some countries you can't name, they have different laws and reporting aggregations, and maybe those differences affect the reported numbers in ways you can't quantify, and maybe that means Sweden doesn't really have the most rapes in Europe. Yes, that's true, but not really meaningful. Maybe Sweden has more.
I'm sure you'll object to my characterization. Your Wikipedia source listed an expert saying that there were 16 countries in Europe who would aggregate multiple rapes into a single offense! But in reply, I would say that the paper[1] linked to doesn't name these countries and it is more than 20 years out of date (the paper cites a European Council that took place in 1999 for this claim). Sweden's laws regarding rape have changed in the last 20 years, have the laws of these other unnamed countries changed?
This is what I mean by being elusive. If you told me that in Sweden X would count as rape and in Belgium X would not be rape, then I'd google it and see if sources on Belgium law confirmed that X is not rape. Then I'd see if we could quantify how many rapes X contributed relative to Belgium, and so on. But instead, all I get from Swedish rape apologists is that there are some unknown countries and unknown ways that mean Sweden's apparently high rape statistics aren't really an issue.
Likewise, the incident you mentioned from 1993. Is that what you are saying explains the current rape rates? Does it explain part of it? Can you quantify it? Or is this just some other observation you can make to obfuscate the issue?
This is the same point with regards to trust in the police. Maybe trust in police contributes to a high rape rate, but you have absolutely no reason to think so. You just throw out "Maybe this" style speculation - and yes, maybe that's relevant, but you should probably try to figure out if it is relevant and how before just tossing it out as if it explained anything.
Again, I'm sure you'll object - you provided that statista link showing women trust the police. But did you even read it? "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes."
19% of Swedish women think the police are doing a good job (from 2016) solving crime and most people think they are doing a bad job. So that is supposed to be evidence that Swedish women's faith in police drives them to report rapes more frequently than the rest of Europe? Huh? I'm not even sure how I should respond to arguments like this because first, it's less than half of what you need - you need to show that Swedish women trust police more than the rest of Europe, and second that trust in police drives rape reporting. This doesn't compare to the rest of Europe and it doesn't establish the connection to rape reporting. Second, the link itself says the opposite of what you use it to support - most Swedish women do not have faith that the police will do a good job.
Finally, you conclude by saying that you're not going to be my research while I just "Ask Questions". This is a fitting end because you again repeat left wing tropes wi...
I named two - Denmark and Norway.
> Your Wikipedia source listed an expert
Wikipedia gives several different sources. I verified the first three contain the appropriate supporting information.
> doesn't name these countries
Except that one of the sources explicitly named Norway and Denmark.
> all I get from Swedish rape apologists is that there are some unknown countries and unknown ways
Except that I gave a specific example of how Sweden is different from Norway and Denmark.
Why should I think Belgium and Sweden are more similar than Sweden and Norway?
Why should I think Greece and Sweden are more similar?
And you can clearly see from that example that reporting methods are not quantified in the law, so looking only to Control-F the law isn't enough.
> Sweden's laws regarding rape have changed in the last 20 years, have the laws of these other unnamed countries changed?
Is your thesis that all European countries have not only the same definition of rape but also the same reporting methods?
And that the multiple independent sources through the decades which say they are different, are wrong?
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Where is your evidence? If it's so apparently wrong, where are the published scholarly papers which show BRÅ and other experts use the wrong scales? Why is it limited to right-wingers and random internet commenters?
> Second, the link itself says the opposite of what you use it to support - most Swedish women do not have faith that the police will do a good job.
Take a look at the table again and see that you've misread it.
Here's the data:
In Sweden, women trust the police more than men.Since you haven't read the basic papers cited by Wikipedia, since you've misrepresented or ignored what I've read, and since you can't read a data table, I don't think you should be so sure of your ability to do research on this topic.
> has more or less to do with Sweden's high rape rates than the counting and definitional things you can't describe?
One of the problems with JAQing off is these answers have long ago been addressed, which means you don't actually care about the answers.
FWIW, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crime-sweden-rape-capital-... : "Statistical evidence shows that rape in Sweden is not on the rise. Reported cases have remained steady for almost a decade", including the period before the recent wave of immigrants.
Repeating these questions at this point is pretty hard to distinguish from baseless right-wing racist fearmongering.
You say that you "named two countries - Denmark and Norway" - presumably you mean that these are countries where multiple rapes are aggregated into a single instance. Rather, as the Amnesty International report puts it Denmark reports statistics on rape-cases, not rape incidents - quoting the report from footnote 24 "In Denmark and Norway, the statistics refer to cases. In general, one case will be opened for each victim, so the statistics do not indicate the actual number of rapes."
Okay, lets consider that for a moment. On Denmark's government website[1] where they report rape statistics (the English version of their website). There, they write "The statistics show the number of offences of criminal code and special laws/legislation reported to the police or discovered by the police itself." They also note that their laws on reporting rape, and what classifies as rape, changed in 2013 - perhaps that explains the discrepancy with the Amnesty International report. If you look in Eurostat[2] you can see that Denmark's rape rate was ~15 per 100k in 2013 and is at 38 by 2020. So, no. Denmark's stats seem to be on crimes reported to the police per their current live government website. You can query the tool here[3] to see that the rapes reported on this page match is reported in Eurostat.
Norway too reports on "offenses reported to the police."[4] If you look at the table there for rape, and divide by Norway's population, you can find approximately the same numbers reported in Eurostat.
Let's recall that not only are you wrong about Denmark and Norway, you also didn't even try to answer the relevant questions. Suppose it were true that Denmark consolidated all reports of rape to a single instance - how does that change things? Again, the best you can do is that maybe, in some circumstances, some countries count differently. I tend to think the reason you are hesitant to be specific is that whenever you are specific I can just look up the specifics and see that you're wrong.
You allege that I'm claiming there is some kind of conspiracy here. This is typical of your arrogant and lazy style of commenting. Rather than read your own sources or look at official government sites, you skim wikipedia and throw out "What ifs" and "Maybes". When I point out that you are completely wrong and directly refuted by official sources, you go to the "You're a racist conspiracy theorist" defense. Perhaps you've tried that in real life and you've noticed that people stop talking when you try this, and you've assumed that meant it was a winning argument. In reality, I think it's more of a tell that you don't know what you're talking about and you don't bother to try and find out - and that's why people stop talking.
You refer again to the statista table as if this were meaningful. You do not compare trust in the police in Sweden across Europe. Worse, you don't have any theory that predicts "If Swedish women trust the police more than Swedish men then Swedish women will report more rapes than any other country in Europe." The theory sounds like nonsense when you read it, so why are you showing me evidence that Swedish women trust the police more than men like it confirms anything? As I previously quoted from your source - the majority of Swedes do not have confidence that the police will solve crimes. Quoting it again "Also when it comes to the police's ability to solve crimes 19 percent of Swedish women and only 11 percent the men perceive that the police is doing a good job. But nevertheless, most of surveyed people stated that they are doing a bad job in terms of solving crimes."
You write that Belgium's reporting method is not written in their law, so t...
It really does seem like you're right-wing conspiracy theorist, given the diverse set of sources you don't trust. And I cited far more than BRÅ.
> skim wikipedia
I'm saying you didn't do the first steps of checking the supporting resources on Wikipedia.
I go to Google Scholar. And I pointed you towards some of them, so you know I'm not only skimming Wikipedia.
What scholarly resources I can find substantially support the conclusions BRÅ reported, and include sources which are different from, and even predating that report.
Point me to a actual scholarly paper which substantiates the substance of your argument. Scholars love to demonstrate how others are wrong.
I see you mentioned "On Denmark's government website".
You'll note we live in 2022, and you must surely know that Denmark changed their laws in the last few years to be more aligned with Sweden's, in part because of the Amnesty International report "Time for Change: Justice for Rape Survivors in the Nordic Countries". (I learned all this by reading papers found through Google Scholar, so it wasn't hard.)
Before then, Danish law required the prosecutor to demonstrate the accused rapist used violence, threats, etc.
Now, that's great - Danish law got better. And as as a result, your #1 has the note "A new concept of consent regarding rape is taking effect from 1st of January 2021 which has resulted in new ways for the police to register offences regarding rape. This has to be taken into account when comparing data over time."
Which is why if you extend it back using "Get your own statistics in the Statbank about Reported criminal offences (STRAF11)" you'll see a clear trend upwards in 'Sexual offenses, total' starting in 2021. (Compare 6,320 in 2018 and 5,548 in 2019 to 8,788 in the last four quarters.)
Which is what I would expect from broadening the definition of rape.
So great, perhaps Sweden and Denmark have identical definitions and statistics now.
But the baseless right-wing claims that Sweden is the rape capital of Europe, etc., came out in 2017, so you need to be talking about how they were then.
And the resources I linked to - all of which you deride as outdated, biased, or otherwise nonsense - support the analysis in the BRÅ report.
When I say that I don't trust Snopes - I'm not alleging that Snopes is involved in a conspiracy with BRA to cover up rape stats. Instead, what I think, is that the freelance bloggers churning out Snopes articles on trending topics are motivated to quickly produce articles. The Snopes blogger googles "Sweden rape capital true" and gets BRA's explanation and then copies and pastes it plus some graphs. Now, I'm using "copies and pastes" a bit loosely, metaphorically, but I definitely see some of the same language in that Snopes article that I have seen and heard from Swedish government officials - it is very much the same argument and it is very much wrong for the same reasons. Likewise, when I say that I don't trust you when you repeat the same argument, I am not saying that I think you are in a conspiracy with the Swedish government - I am saying that you are repeating the same original argument from BRA which is wrong.
Just consider the course of this argument - "Sweden has a higher rape rate because they count every individual rape whereas other countries aggregate multiple rapes into a single count." Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences. "Norway." Nope, they count offences. "This wikipedia article says an Amnesty International report says that a European Council says that in 1999 16 countries counted cases rather than offences." Okay, well that seems to be out of date - you can look at the government websites and Eurostat. "You are a racist conspiracy theorist." I am not saying that there is a conspiracy or that mainstream sources are wrong (they all agree completely with me), or that everyone is wrong but me. I'm saying that BRA spins the stats that make them look bad and you are uncritically repeating BRA.
Rather than investigate what is true, you try and find ways that you might be right. The question of whether or not Denmark reports offences or cases is a good example. I want to know, so I go to Denmark's current website on criminal statistics and look at their reporting policy. I do this not because I'm a genius but because it is obvious if I want to know Denmark's crime reporting policy I should look at Denmark's crime reporting policy. By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes. That's not a good way of investigating - unless, you are just trying to find some source that supports your current claims (and who cares if it's not current, not an official policy, not from the Danish government, and not connected to the figures we are currently debating).
You write that perhaps Denmark changed their laws and/or their reporting practices and so they are perhaps they are up to date with Sweden now but then you say the important claim is whether they were up to date in 2017. First, this disagreement began when I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017. Second, in 2017 Sweden had the highest rape rate in Europe. We have data for 2021 and Sweden still has the highest rape rate in Europe. You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now, the fact that they might not have had parity in 2017 means it's wrong to say Sweden is the regional leader for rape now. I suppose you think it...
] In 1996, the average number of rape offences registered in 35 European countries was 6.6 per 100,000 of population (see Table I), whilst Sweden presented a level of 18.2 per 100,000 – almost three times the average
Do you accept that that was true?
If so, why were Sweden's rape statistics in 1996 so much higher than the rest of Europe's?
Why couldn't those systemic factors still be true now?
And even more so, as Sweden's definition of what "rape" means has expanded.
Thus, in 1996 it was 3x and now it's, what, 4x that of Europe's average? And you think it's some recent event which caused the change, rather than being a long-time difference between the countries?
Are the Snopes writers wrong when they wrote "Reported cases have remained steady for almost a decade"? You suggested the "recently admitted hundreds of thousands of disproportionately male immigrants" affected the statistics, but if those statistics didn't change then it's clearly not caused by your hypothesis.
Especially if the "objective comparison (reported figures to reported figures)" shows Sweden's rape leadership status was already in place in the 1990s.
> Which countries? "Denmark." Nope, they count offences.
When did they start counting offenses?
> By contrast, you find a 20+ year old Amnesty International document that cites someone who claims that Denmark reports cases not crimes.
The Amnesty International report was from 2008; 14 years ago.
You're thinking of van Hofer (2000). Which gives the example of how a single report in 1993 nearly doubled Sweden's rape statistics for that month, and shows why your argument based on incredulity isn't a strong one.
Why has the several-fold difference between Sweden's rape statistics and the average for Europe existed for 20+ years?
> That's not a good way of investigating
While you seemingly don't investigate at all. You JAQ-off then criticize any answers you get as not being good enough for you. You misread graphs. You get citations wrong.
> I claimed that Sweden is the regional leader for rape. That's a claim about the current year, not 2017.
Sweden has seemingly been the regional leader for rape for at least 25 years.
And you're only concerned about 2022?
Why is that? Do you really think the are so disconnected that you can ignore history?
Surely you must know that an internet comment board for computer nerds isn't a good place to find the active investigators in the field of international rape statistics gathering who will be able to give you the latest statistics.
Why can't you point to scholarly publications of people who have demonstrated that these older publications are no longer valid? Surely the Danish or German equivalents have the expertise to identify the flaws, and reasons to publish the information. (As I recall, BRÅ said if Sweden followed Germany's methodology then Sweden would be about average for Europe. Why would Germany accept that sort of shade if it were wrong?)
While I can easily find experts willing to write things like "the Nordic countries have a broad judicial definition of rape that includes actions that are not labelled as sexual crimes in many other countries, thus leading to a higher number of reported crimes." (at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1... ), supporting my statement that "Sweden's rape definition is broader, and includes interactions which in many other countries would not be considered a rape" - a view you refused to believe I had researched.
> You seem to be saying that while Denmark and Sweden may have reporting parity now ...
I'm saying that cross-national comparisons ...
It cites the "European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics".
I can't find that specific version. Here's the 30.11.2021 version - https://wp.unil.ch/europeansourcebook/files/2021/12/ESB_Onli... and it lists some of the differences in "rape" between different countries in Europe.
Furthermore, it states:
> For example, 16 countries stated that they apply a principal offence rule and 20 stated they do not. In addition, multiple offences are counted as two or more offences in 20 countries but as one offence in 15 countries. Most countries, 31, count an offence committed by more than one person as one offence.
This is in accord with the paper from 2000, and the statements appear to still hold.
Remember, it pointed out that the rape statistics in Sweden were 3x that of Europe, back in 2000.
And it pointed out how a single report in 1993 nearly doubled the rape statistics for that month.
Is that true? AFAIK SD vote mostly concentrates around and in Malmö, an urban agglomeration.
"feel like they are losing and have been losing for a few decades now."
As the article mentions, one of the main topics of this election was "law and order", not "the countryside is losing".
And who loves law and order more than close minded people?
Another big topic of the elections was the energy crisis and the price of gas… who loves their cheap gas in Sweden? Those cadillacs and heated houses are not cheap to fuel. I wonder if HN even knows most Cadillacs in the world are in middle Sweden. Swedish Hillbilly culture just blows my mind
Very weird thing to say by the way, as if law and order are somehow bad and only bad people would love such things.
Certainly you know gay clubs used to be raided and gay people arrested and beaten up by the police not until that long ago. In Russia today it's the police making sure no one speaks their mind. The Uyghurs in China are persecuted by Chinese law and order. Blacks in the deep south a century ago? And goes on and on and on…
But yeah… historically if you have been a white straight cis man the law has maybe not have been that mean towards you since the end of feudalism. Other people though…
On the other hand, one could also rediscover the benefits of law and order by getting hit by a bullet in one of the by now notorious Swedish gang wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_order
Hence why the people calling for "law and order" are often calling for and doing illegal things.
I’d rather not assume law doesn’t mean law and order doesn’t mean order because the eternal D vs. R divide transforms normal words into a bat to smack one’s opponent over the face with.
If you can't understand that after 3 comments what can I do? It's not hard to understand. It's different things. I never told you I want rape and riots, why are you distorting my words? I said people to whom "law and order" appeals to as policy are close minded people.
I'm personally much more afraid of any Raggare in the Swedish country-side than I've ever been of any immigrant in Stockholm. But I'm also an immigrant in Stockholm and you are not so you will never understand. Never. Just imagine knowing that 1 every 4 males around you basically voted to see people like you gone (if not worse) and you don't even know which one of the 4 it is.
The article is about how disenfranchised Swedish citizens are tired of being victimized by crime and violence and having their legitimate concerns for safety be invalidated and ignored by false accusations of racism... and you turn around and continue to ignore what they're telling you to instead insinuate some other imaginary real reason for their voting changes.
Maybe try actually listening to people and trying to help, instead of making up a cynical reason why they're bad people whose complaints can be ignored? If you read an article about a women's group concerned about sexual assault, would you be so quick to disregard their statements and try to find a hidden "real issue" to shift blame to?
Why are they so worried about gangs and bombings when those are for the most part urban problems?
Doesn't peak your interest? It sure peaks mine.
I can't recall the exact number, but it went something like "remove top 10 dangerous cities from violent crime statistics in the USA, it pretty much becomes like a standard European country".
[1]: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/28/viral-imag...
One (imperfect) way to look at it is by looking at per capita homicides by county. Here's California: https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/california/2022/mea...
The counties with the highest murder rate in CA are Trinity, Kern, Lake, Del Norte, and San Joaquin. They're about twice as murderous as Alameda (Oakland).
A confounding factor is that smaller counties have a larger margin of error, but the overall trend is still clear. Another confounding factor is that this is by county and not city, but if cities were much worse than their surroundings they'd dominate the per capita metric.
It turns out there are seven states with very dangerous metro areas (Missouri, Illinois, Maryland, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) and eight states with dangerous metro areas (South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Nevada). The remaining states are much safer, with metro rates comparable to the nationwide nonmetro average.
Some of that matches with the conventional wisdom (e.g. Chicago is dangerous), but I think those nationwide statistics are quite deceptive. I think it's quite interesting that a California metro area is safer than a California nonmetro area, and both are nearly twice as safe as a Louisiana metro.
Take a look at these charts I generated: https://ibb.co/album/LztM7j . You can reproduce them with this saved CDC WONDER request: https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D140/D307F000
Example this ad campaign from a couple of years back.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/23/uk-ad-campai...
But fair enough - I couldn't remember my source, maybe I'll dig up the article I was referencing, it might very well be faulty.
One would think that people in Sweden would see a connection between the several weekly cases of shootings against apartments and detonations in buildings, and the accessibility of the information mentioned above. But no. There isn't even a debate. It's something I absolutely cannot understand.
Historically, transparency and openness has been crucial elements of Swedish culture and societal structure. However, it's a luxury which the country, in the light of today's situation, simply cannot afford to have to the extend it had historically. But no one seems to actually see this. It's drives me kinda nuts.