Friday, November 16, 2007

The Swedish Age of Innocence

I can’t believe this nonsense. The Swedish justice system is disgusting. As I mentioned in my previous post I understand that it is important to protect the rights of your citizens. Innocent until proven guilty and all that good stuff. Fine. But Sweden just doesn’t seem to get it. Sweden takes it too far.

A person was recently murdered here in Stockholm. They were pushed in front of a train at the subway station and were run over and killed. The police still haven’t made any arrests. They did release some pictures in the free newspapers today of two men who are thought to be of interest in a little kiosk. This could mean they are suspected of the murder or of at least knowing who is behind the murder. You would think released pictures would be extremely helpful. It’s not. The picture doesn’t show the persons face. It is completely censored. All I see is a man with jeans on and a tan jacket on. That really narrows it down in a big city. There aren’t too many people who wear that getup in November in the middle of Stockholm. How the hell do they expect people to help them?

This happens regularly. People who are thought to be suspects or involved somehow never have their identities revealed. Even after they are convicted they are still censored out. Maybe it’s Sweden’s passive aggressive way of erasing someone from the country. Or maybe they are just taking this way too far. Getting help from the general public in finding criminals can be pretty effective. America even has numerous shows that ask for help in finding wanted criminals. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but I’ll take sometimes over never. And I have a hard time believing that a censored picture showing a man in jeans and a tan jacket ever works.

Two men known as Stureplanprofilerna, the Stureplan Profiles, were accused of raping a couple of women in a popular area of Stockholm called Stureplan. These men never had their identities revealed. So here we have two guys who have been accused of raping women and they are out on free foot hanging out in the same areas, and the average person has no idea what they look like. People should have the right to know. They were finally convicted and sentenced for rape, but only after having been released once and then raping again.

After the murder of Anna Lindh, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the police released surveillance footage, again censoring out the face. She was murdered in one of the busiest department stores in all of Stockholm, NK, and was stabbed over twenty times. Of course no one “saw” anything and the man got away. It took two weeks before the right man was arrested. I say right because another man had been brought in on suspicion of murder because he resembled the man in the censored picture. So did a lot of people. Ridiculous. The guy turned out to be of Serbian descent and asked to be sent to Serbia to serve his time. The Swedish government refused because they didn’t think Serbian prisons were safe enough. It’s prison! Not a vacation.

It drives me nuts. This country is too innocent sometimes, and it seems when something bad happens then it just doesn’t know how to respond. And when it does respond it acts in an idealistic and often unfeasible way. While there is obviously something very nice about the innocence here a place not plagued by murder, school shootings, rape, drugs, and everything else imaginable. It does happen. And when it does it should be acted upon quickly and efficiently. And Sweden’s idealism gets in the way. An interesting Catch-22 really, because in trying to preserve Sweden’s innocence they might actually be accelerating its demise.

13 comments:

  1. I totally agree. Or at least 70%. The swedish system is to much about "protecting", but sometimes it feels like they protect the criminals more than the victims, and that just pisses me off. Interesting example with Anna Lindh

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  2. Yeah it just seems that the protection is offered to the accused before it is offered to the victim.

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  3. hey i saw a bush-monkey today....really i did.

    but anyways...oh thank the lord you posted this because I could go on ages about this crap....why oh why protect them? come on now! freaking idiots, how can i help protect whats mine if i dont know that the person standing next to me could kill me at any second!?

    they need to grow up and get with the times..this isnt candyland..people are fierce and will do what they need to do to get what they want and protecting them? for what? what do they deserve after they've broken the law? NOTHING! especially the gothenburg idiots who go around now having gang wars..oh yeah lets protect them so they can get away with it, so i can walk down the street to my job wondering if i am going to be the next one getting hit by a stray bullet...ugh!! i'll stop now coz i really could go on about this..thanks mr hairy swede!

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  4. i get into discussions with my husband over this stuff....i just dont get it...i really dont...innocent like a baby and greener then any pasture i've ever seen..thats sweden!

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  5. Welcome to Sweden I suppose. It's nice at times, but sometimes the innocence is just exhausting.

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  6. I agree with you, but the faces are cencored until proven guilty. Because if proven not-guilty, the person could sue everyone that has a picture of him/her published. I hear in America this is how it works, also taking advantage of the system :)

    I've also thought why bother release such pictures which show nothing. Ridiculous.

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  7. Well while a lot of people in the US are more than happy to sue anybody they can pictures tend to not be censored all that often. Mainly because of the whole innocent until proven guilty thing that we have had drilled into our heads since we were little. whether this happens in practice or not is debatable but the idea is strong enough that the media has no problem showing uncensored pictures of people who are on the run and suspected of crimes. I feel pretty confident that this is beneficial in actually catching the criminals. Plus the US has a really short memory so if someone is innocent and had there picture splashed all over the media most people forget in a hurry as they move on to the next scandal.

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  8. So I guess you never watched Efterlyst.

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  9. Never watched but have heard about it. Basically its like the Swedish version of unsolved mysteries and most wanted. Good times. But this show does show some people without blurring everything. Good for Sweden. But there are still a lot of instances where Sweden gives too much protection to the bad guys.

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  10. Never watched but have heard about it. Basically its like the Swedish version of unsolved mysteries and most wanted. Good times. But this show does show some people without blurring everything. Good for Sweden. But there are still a lot of instances where Sweden gives too much protection to the bad guys.

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  11. You got some good points here. That picture released by the police to help get the crook with the face blurred out was just a joke to me. Unfortunately it's in my home and native country. That makes it less funny somehow...

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  12. If someone is a known/proven criminal, I believe their identies should be revealed.

    However, if someone is innocent until proven guilty, I can understand why they would not reveal their identity.

    The USA, everything is plastered out in the open, no matter what the truth is. Gossip. Lies. Truths. I don't think that's helpful when guilt is still trying to be determined. Minimally, it interferes with justice/privacy.

    However, if someone is a known/proven criminal, I believe their identies should be revealed.

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  13. I'd say thats fair enough. its the blurred out face that really bothers me when they are searching for someone. just seems like it would be more effective to release that sort of thing if they are asking the public for help.

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