Sweden Lowers Age of Criminal Responsibility to 14

Sweden’s parliament voted on Aug. 13 to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 for the most serious offenses, opening the way for children of that age to be sentenced to prison.The Swedish reform passed by 281 votes to 66, with the progressive opposition Social Democrats siding with the minority conservative government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who has vowed to crack down on crime, and its right-wing ally, the Sweden Democrats. The Left, Green, and Centre parties voted against the measure.Most provisions take effect on Sept. 10, three days before the country’s general election.For more than 10 years, the Scandinavian nation has been plagued by violent turf wars between rival gangs, driven largely by the fight over the drug trade.5-Year Experiment Aimed at GangsThe lowered threshold covers only crimes carrying a minimum of four years in prison, such as murder, aggravated rape, kidnapping, and aggravated weapons offenses, and will lapse after five years unless lawmakers renew it after an evaluation.Fourteen-year-olds sentenced to prison will serve their terms in special youth units in prison.The government argues that criminal networks deliberately recruit children under 15 for shootings and bombings precisely because they cannot be punished, and that suspects in fatal shootings keep getting younger: 52 children under 15 were involved in court proceedings over murders or murder plots last year, it said.The government had initially sought to set the age at 13, but withdrew that bill in June for lack of a majority after most of the 126 groups consulted, including the police and the prison service, opposed it.The Children’s Ombudsman, Save the Children, UNICEF Sweden, and the state crime prevention council have opposed the age lowering, with several claiming that no research shows it reduces offending and that the younger a child is prosecuted, the higher the risk of reoffending.Lawmakers also voted to scale back sentence reductions for young offenders, meaning minors under 18 can now face prison terms of up to 18 years.A Broader European ShiftFor Frédéric Pichon, a French criminal defense lawyer, Sweden’s about-face tells the story of a continent.Nordic countries long pursued “extremely liberal policies, both on criminal matters, particularly toward minors, and on immigration,” he told The Epoch Times. “Today, they are confronted with the consequences of decades of ideological denial.”Europe in general, he said, faces the same reckoning: gravely violent cases involving minors have multiplied over the past years.Across Europe, governments confronted with ever younger and ever more violent offenders are hardening their juvenile justice systems.In France, Parliament adopted a law championed by former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in May 2025 to toughen the treatment of juvenile offenders and their parents.The Constitutional Council struck down the law’s flagship provisions the following month, including an end to the reduced sentences for repeat offenders aged 16 and over, ruling that mitigated punishment based on a minor’s age is a constitutional requirement.In Germany, where the threshold has stood at 14 since 1923, senior Christian Democrats have called for lowering it to 12, and the governing coalition agreed in 2025 to commission a study on the question, though no change has been adopted.Hungary made 12-year-olds punishable for homicide and a few other grave crimes in 2013, provided they understood their acts.Lowering the age nonetheless addresses only the end of the chain, Pichon said. “When a young person reaches 15 or 16, it is already too late.” What society needs, he said, is a restoration of the concept of authority along with greater parental responsibility and an end to the glorification of violence in popular culture.