Social Democrats target sentence discounts for sexual offences

Sweden’s Social Democrats want to abolish sentence discounts for sexual offences, SVT reported. The party’s legal policy spokesperson, Teresa Carvalho, announced the proposal at a press conference on Friday.

“Our first step is to abolish the discount specifically for sexual offences. We will be able to implement that during the next parliamentary term,” Carvalho said.

The announcement came after the Tidö parties promised on Monday to abolish sentence discounts during the next parliamentary term. The centre-left parties have said they will vote against that proposal as a whole, although their own proposal is expected to differ in detail.

Under the current system, a combined sentence can be shorter when someone is convicted of several offences at the same time than if the sentences for each offence were added together separately.

The Swedish Prison and Probation Service has previously said there will not be enough prison places for people serving longer sentences until 2040 at the earliest.

The Social Democrats presented three new election promises at the press conference. In addition to abolishing the discount for sexual offences, they include targeted increases in sentences and measures to make the expansion of the prison and probation service more efficient.

The Moderate Party has also promised to abolish sentence discounts, but for all offences by 2030. Asked why the Social Democrats are proposing the change only for one category of offence, Carvalho said the Moderates’ approach could not simply replace the sentencing reform already before parliament.