Sweden reforms social work degrees to tackle gang violence

Sweden is seeking to bring down its rocketing murder rate by updating social work degrees to better prepare graduates to work with young people in gangs, but some have criticised the government’s direct intervention in the syllabus.

No other country in Europe has seen similar growth in firearm murders, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. The trend is driven mostly by deaths of those in their twenties, with 18 per million killed in 2017, the latest year with available data, compared with 6 per million in the Netherlands, the second worst affected.

Sweden’s centre-right government has introduced longer sentences for illegally supplying guns but has said social work graduates must also be better trained to prevent the escalating violence.

It has tasked Uppsala University social work researcher Michael Tärnfalk with looking into how degree programmes are falling short and how they could better prepare graduates for the unusually powerful role they occupy in the legal system.

“The Swedish system is very odd in an international context,” Professor Tärnfalk told Times Higher Education, explaining that while criminal courts can keep young offenders in juvenile detention for only fixed periods, social services can do so for as long as they see fit.

When sentencing young offenders, Swedish law puts great stock in the expert statements provided by social workers, but many graduates lack the legal knowledge to write these in a credible way, Professor Tärnfalk added.

“They have so much power…but they don’t have the knowledge to live up to the extreme responsibility they should have been properly educated for,” he said.

The result is wildly different sentences for the same crime, as judges are left second-guessing social workers’ advice, said Professor Tärnfalk.

His investigation, which will run until the end of March 2024, will look at whether Sweden should change the requirements for social work bachelor’s programmes or tweak the extra semester of specialisation tacked onto the end of them.

Some have questioned whether the government should be so heavily involved in updating social work syllabuses. Lars Brännström, professor of social work at Stockholm University, said the government’s intervention “violates the established process” for steering syllabuses. While gang violence is a serious issue, it is limited to major cities, Professor Brännström said, questioning the need to mandate it as part of national curricula.

He disagreed that course materials had stayed static amid growing violence, but like Professor Tärnfalk, said current training was too short and should be extended from three and a half to five years, in line with training for medical and psychology programmes.

Professor Tärnfalk said an unfamiliarity with relevant criminal law had stunted anti-gang research and syllabus development in social work, while discomfort about the prevalence of violence among poorly integrated immigrant communities had also stifled academic debate.

Safety and security figured prominently in Sweden’s last election and the right-wing Sweden Democrats, who have a confidence and supply deal with the centre-right government, have recently called for greater gun ownership to combat the issue.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com