Sweden’s parliament voted on the evening of August 13, 2026, to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 for the most serious crimes.
The decision ends a threshold that has been in place since 1864, DR reports. A large majority in the Riksdag backed the change, which applies only to the gravest offenses.
According to DR, the center-right government says the aim is to confront the rise in crime among children and young people in Sweden in recent years. Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer of the liberal-conservative Moderate Party said earlier in the day that the current system fails to protect citizens from life-threatening violence. He added that it neither gives victims redress nor breaks the destructive patterns surrounding these children.
Alongside the governing parties, the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats voted in favor. DR notes that the Social Democrats have tightened their line on law and order, as the center-right parties have done. The party’s spokesperson, Teresa Carvalho, described the reform as one piece of the puzzle in how society should handle the violent acts in question.
Criticism from organizations and the opposition
The proposal has met strong resistance from a range of actors, organizations and opposition politicians, DR reports. One of the central objections is that 14-year-olds do not understand the consequences of their actions.
Gudrun Nordborg, spokesperson for the Left Party, argued that much has changed since 1864, but that children are still children while society has grown more complicated. She said there may be more reason to ask whether the age limit should be raised rather than lowered.
Per DR, the prison at Rosersberg, north of Stockholm, is among the facilities that will house 14-year-olds under the new rules. The reporting does not specify how many young people are expected to be affected.
An election a month away
DR reports that Swedish voters go to the polls in about a month, and that law and order weighs heavily among them. The vote in the Riksdag therefore lands in the middle of an election campaign in which crime policy has been a central theme.
Sweden’s age of criminal responsibility had remained unchanged for more than 160 years before the vote. Under the previous rules, children under 15 who committed crimes were handled by social services rather than the criminal justice system. The new law creates an exception to that principle for the most serious cases.
DR was the only outlet with reporting on the parliamentary decision at the time of publication. No official statement beyond the remarks from Strömmer and the party spokespersons cited by DR was available.
