Analysis · 2 min read
Emergency services under attack — what do sabotage offences measure?
Reported sabotage offences fell from 600 to 508 between 2020 and 2022 in Brå statistics reproduced in SOU 2024:1. This is not a count of all threats or violence against personnel. How do reports, operational incidents and sanctions differ?
The measure has been clarified: reported sabotage offences 2020–2022, not a total of all attacks on emergency personnel.
Short version in the chapter: Crime & safety — chapter
Published 2026-07-16
Reported sabotage 2020–2022 — not all attacks
SOU 2024:1, table 12.1, reproduces Brå criminal statistics extracted in June 2023: 600 reported offences in 2020, 568 in 2021 and 508 in 2022. This covers sabotage against emergency services, including aggravated offences, in Sweden. The series declines for this reporting measure, not necessarily for all threats or violence against personnel.
The offence was introduced on 1 January 2020. No equivalent series from 2015 is shown. Counts concern reported offences, not people, call-outs or convictions.
The same observations as in the chart
SOU 2024:1, table 12.1; Brå extraction June 2023, all Sweden.
2020
- Reported sabotage offences, incl. aggravated
- 600
2021
- Reported sabotage offences, incl. aggravated
- 568
2022
- Reported sabotage offences, incl. aggravated
- 508
| Year | Reported sabotage offences, incl. aggravated |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 600 |
| 2021 | 568 |
| 2022 | 508 |
What does the offence cover?
Section 12.2 describes protection for policing, rescue services and ambulance care. Conduct must be apt to seriously impede or obstruct emergency response or crime-fighting activity. Not every workplace incident or disruption meets this requirement.
Reported sabotage offences must not be added to rescue-service incident reports or ambulance workplace incidents as if their definitions were identical. The table does not provide separate counts for the three services.
Sanctions are a different measure
Tables 12.2–12.4 record prosecution decisions by principal offence and principal sanction: ordinary offences 16 in 2020, 47 in 2021 and 58 in 2022; aggravated offences 0, 0 and 43 respectively. Decision years are not reporting years for the same cases, so these counts are not a clearance rate.
The inquiry describes the sentencing scale then in force: up to four years for ordinary offences; two to eighteen years or life for aggravated offences. This is the law described in SOU 2024:1, not a check of subsequent amendments.
How should the development be interpreted?
This limited series measures reported offences under a specific classification. It does not identify the effect of sentencing, police presence, offender motives or injury severity. Such conclusions require other evidence and a separate analysis.
Separate comparable national series for stone-throwing against rescue services and incidents against ambulance personnel are not presented here. Previous unsupported figures have been withdrawn; this does not mean that incidents are absent or zero.
Methodological scope
Reports are not established offences or convictions. These figures reproduce the inquiry’s identified Brå extraction; they are not a complete survey of personnel exposure.