Global evidence indicates minimal connection between immigration and crime. Nordic research, however, has been generally carried out on individuals and shows that immigrants are over-represented in crime. This has led to claims that high crime rates are due to immigration. We directed our study towards these claims by analyzing immigrant population prevalence, defined as the percent of foreign-born individuals, and violent crime in Swedish municipalities between 2000 and 2020. Nearly all municipalities had higher violent crime rates in 2020 relative to 2000. To discern whether drastic increases in municipality-level crime rates could be connected to municipality-level immigrant population prevalence, a retrospective case–control design was used to select 20 municipalities with the highest increase in reported violent crime rates and 20 municipalities with the lowest increase in reported violent crime rates. Immigrant population prevalence had little association with high rates of reported violent crime. The average association between immigrant population prevalence and violent crime rates calculated from all municipalities was also weak and non-significant (p > 0.05). Municipalities with a high increase in crime tended to have more crime correlates than municipalities with a low increase in crime. However, more research is needed on the impact of migration in small towns, especially those that have experienced economic and social stagnation.

Self-regulation is integral to human well-being. Previous research established associations between self-regulation and life outcomes, although mostly based on cross-sectional or longitudinal research with relatively short follow-up periods. We aimed to investigate associations between self-regulation during childhood and low education, psychiatric diagnosis, conviction for non-violent and violent crime, and premature mortality up to 50 years later. The sample consisted of boys born between 1943 and 1951 in Stockholm, Sweden, who were initially interviewed as part of the Clientele Study and followed up until they were 58–66 years of age as part of the Stockholm Life Course Project (N = 251). Our measure of self-regulation was indicated by five dimensions extracted from multiple sources and informants when study members were children. Information on life outcomes were extracted from Swedish national registry data available through 2009. Results from logistic regression and survival analyses showed that lower self-regulation during childhood was associated with a higher risk of conviction for non-violent and violent crime, receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and premature mortality up until late adulthood. Self-regulation was not associated with low education. Analyses were adjusted for intelligence and parental socioeconomic status. While based on a relatively small sample and measurement of self-regulation using data from the 1960s, our study supports the notion that self-regulation during childhood is central for well-being across the lifespan.

In this exploratory study, individuals’ processes of engagement in violent extremist groups are analysed by drawing from criminological life-course theory and narrative-based understandings of crime. Based on interviews with individuals who have participated in violent extremism, it is suggested that the process of engagement consists of three steps: (1) a weakening of informal social controls, followed by (2) an interaction with individuals in proximity to the group and (3) a stage of meaning-making in relation to the group and one’s identity, resulting in an individual’s willingness and capacity to engaging in the group’s activities, including violence. In future theorizing about processes of engagement in violent extremism, the meanings of age, and the life-course stages of late adolescence and emerging adulthood in particular, should be given analytic attention.

This population-based time-trend study examines gun violence rates among males in Sweden during the years 1996 to 2015 and compares the rate in Sweden to other Western European countries. Data were collected from six registries and are presented descriptively per 100,000 inhabitants. The risks among males in Sweden increased considerably in both lethal and non-lethal gun victimization and perpetration. Among males aged 15 to 29 there was a five-fold increase in risk for victimization in lethal and non-lethal gun violence during the 20-year observation period. In a comparative perspective the rate of gun homicide victimization among males 15 to 29 years was higher in Sweden compared to other Western European countries, while the risk for males over age 30 was at an average level. Based on the results of this study we conclude that gun violence among young males in Sweden has been on the rise and is at a high level compared to other Western European countries. The development of gun violence in Sweden can be characterized as endemic, prevalent in both population and socially vulnerable areas.

Purpose

Crime runs in families: a convicted parent is a risk factor for children’s criminality. What is the extent of intergenerational transmission in Sweden? Is transmission similar for men and women and/or do we see gender-specific transmission? To what extent do children follow similar offending trajectories as their parents?

Methods

We used group-based trajectory modelling to study intergenerational transmission in the Stockholm Life Course Project. By merging the samples when running the trajectory models, we get a more robust model than if we had run the samples separately.

Results

Children of convicted parents are about 2–2.6 times more likely to have a conviction compared with children of non-convicted parents. We did not find strong support that intergenerational transmission is stronger for same-gender relationships. Transmission seems slightly stronger to daughters and from mothers, but few of these patterns are significant. Although father and offspring trajectories look similar, the significant relationship can be explained by the observation that non-offending fathers are more likely to have non-offending sons. Fathers with more chronic offending trajectories do not necessarily predict sons with similar more chronic offending trajectories.

Conclusions

We find strong intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, but offspring convictions are related to the fact that fathers have a conviction rather than to what their conviction trajectory looks like.