How do Sweden's overall and violent crime rates compare to Germany, France, and the UK in 2020–2024?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Between 2020 and 2024 Sweden saw a decline in total reported crimes after a rise up to 2020, with high-profile increases in gang-related shootings and bombings prompting political concern even as homicides fell to a decade low in 2024; cross-country comparisons are muddied by differing definitions, reporting practices and the available public data, but perception-based indices place Sweden worse than the UK, Germany and France while UN-derived homicide data are the only internationally comparable violent-crime proxy cited by major sources [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the official Swedish data say: fewer reported crimes, sharper violent flashpoints
National and specialist reporting shows that Sweden’s total number of reported crimes fell after 2020—Statista notes a drop of over 100,000 reported crimes through 2022—and Brå and media summaries report decreases in theft, robbery and fraud even as drug offences rose and gang-related violence (shootings, bombings) became more visible; Sweden recorded 92 homicides in 2024, described as the lowest level in a decade, while police also registered a steep increase in bombings and dozens of fatal shootings that have driven public concern [1] [2].
2. How violent-crime comparisons should be framed: homicide as the reliable cross‑country yardstick
Crime researchers and international bodies routinely treat the intentional homicide rate as the most comparable measure of serious violence across countries because it is relatively consistently defined and reported to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime; the Wikipedia compilation that aggregates UNODC figures underscores that homicide is used as a proxy for overall violence for international comparisons [3].
3. Perception and composite indexes: Sweden ranks worse than neighbours on some consumer‑survey measures
Survey‑based and composite crime indices such as Numbeo’s Crime Index show Sweden ranked higher (worse) than the UK in recent years and often above Germany and France in European lists—these indices reflect public perception and reported personal experiences rather than police‑record comparability, and Crime+Investigation UK and Numbeo have cited Sweden as among the less safe European countries by their metrics [4] [5] [6].
4. Germany, France and the UK — what the sources here do and do not provide
The assembled sources provide comparative, perception‑based dashboards and catalogue methods (Numbeo, Crime+Investigation, NationMaster) but do not supply a clean set of UNODC homicide rates for Germany, France and the UK within 2020–2024 in the snippets provided; while macro sites like NationMaster or Macrotrends offer country comparisons, the excerpts here only give a Sweden crime‑rate datapoint for 2020 (1.20 per 100,000 on Macrotrends’ measure) rather than a full, directly comparable panel for the four countries across 2020–2024, so a definitive numeric ranking from these sources alone cannot be produced without consulting UNODC or national statistical releases for each country-year [7] [8].
5. How to reconcile the headline narratives: mixed signals and measurement caveats
The apparent paradox—declining total reported crimes in Sweden since 2020 alongside heightened political debate and media attention to shootings, bombings and sexual offences—reflects two concurrent realities in the sources: official crime volumes (reported offences) fell in aggregate after 2020 according to Statista and Swedish reporting, but certain violent crime types and organised‑crime incidents drew intense attention and raise perception indices that push Sweden above its neighbours in survey rankings; at the same time Eurostat reminds readers that pandemic years distorted police‑recorded crime patterns across Europe, so year‑to‑year comparisons from 2020–2021 require caution [1] [2] [9] [4].
Bottom line
Based on the available reporting here, Sweden’s aggregate reported crime declined after 2020 while the country experienced a noticeable concentration of violent, organised‑crime incidents that elevated public concern and perception‑based indices placing Sweden worse than Germany, France and the UK; however, authoritative international violent‑crime comparisons rely on UNODC homicide rates and the provided sources do not supply the complete, directly comparable homicide series for Germany, France and the UK across 2020–2024, so any definitive numeric ranking between the four countries for that period requires consultation of UNODC or each nation’s crime statistics [1] [2] [3] [4].