In order to be officially classed as such, a blighted area must fulfill several criteria: have high crime and poverty rates, provide difficulties to police attempting to carry out their routines, exhibit parallel societies and/or religious extremism or be in direct proximity to other blighted areas. Another feature of these is that crimes are seldom reported to the police for fear of retaliation or lack of confidence.
Another popular term for these areas is a "no-go zone," which the Swedish police force strongly rejects, despite admittedly encountering difficulties and being repeatedly met with violence.
According to Dagens Nyheter, the new blighted areas are situated in the metropolitan areas of Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholm, as well as smaller towns like Borås and Landskrona. While it is not often publicly acknowledged in liberal Sweden, ghettos have been mushrooming in lockstep with uncontrolled migration.
Dagens Nyheter's sources claimed the report to be meant for publication a month ago, however, it was stopped by Police Chief Dan Eliasson. According to a source, there is currently no reliable answer to how this trend can possibly be reversed.
"It's a crisis mode. The management realizes that it ought to present a credible action plan. The problem is that there is simply not much to do," the source told Dagens Nyheter.
Many regional police heads have been desperately calling for more staff and more resources to work with.
"We know how to work when it comes tackling problems […]. In order to do that the right way we ought to get at least another hundred staff," Malmö police chief Stefan Sintéus said.
In 2014, Reinfeldt urged his fellow Swedes to "open their hearts" and embrace mass migration in the years to come regardless of the social and economic consequences. Since then, Reinfeldt has been repeatedly blamed for the negative consequences of unbridled immigration Sweden has been experiencing, such as the elevated crime rate. Most recently, Svenska Dagbladet columnist Ivar Arpi reproached mass migration for growing insecurity among women and fear of sexual assault.
According to the press release, Reinfeldt will be tasked with reversing the negative crime trend and increasing the level of security. In the tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet, however, Reinfeldt was compared to Batman, "the super strong cartoon character who devoted his life to crime fighting."
