There needs to be more focus on violence against officers, the Swedish Police Federation has said.
Katharina von Sydow was elected Chair of the Swedish Police Federation (Svenska Polisforbundet) in September 2022, and she said that protecting officers against assaults should be a priority.
Katharina said: “We need to make the working environment as safe as it can be. We could never take away all the risk, but we should minimise it as much as we can.
“We carried out a survey of young people to ask if they wanted to become a police officer, and 605 of them said they had thought about it but there were a few things that needed to change. One of the main issues was for the working environment to be safer, so that’s very important.
“We want there to be more of a focus on violence against officers and a better focus on how we deal with it, what the employer can do, what legislation is needed.
“We’re speaking to politicians, we’re working together with our employer, and we’re educating them and our officers.”
It was useful to be able to speak to other police organisations in EuroCOP and share ideas, Katharina added.
She said: “I see the importance of this work, with more unions and more countries; I hope even more countries participate in the future.
“We have a lot of similarities. Same problems, different solutions. If we speak to each other, we can find solutions in each other’s organisations.”