About our Organisation:
The National Board of Institutional Care is responsible for the special homes for young people which are institutions possessing the authority to detain and lock up young offenders following orders made by the county administrative court. The young people in these homes are taken into custody as a result of their own conduct - alcohol or drug abuse, criminal tendencies or other destructive behaviour.
There are approximately 650 places at 32 homes for young people throughout Sweden. More than 1,000 young people aged 13 - 20 are taken into homes for care and treatment each year. 70% of them are boys and 30% girls. The largest institutions have up to 40 places. Each unit usually has 6 places with a high staff/resident ratio.
There are several different types of care. There are units for emergency reception and investigation and there are special treatment units. Girls and boys are usually placed in separate units. The younger ones, who are of school age, are placed in special community homes while the older ones are sent to different institutions. There are units for young people who are adopted, for those with criminal tendencies, for those with mental disturbances and for those with alcohol- and drug-related problems. In addition there are special units for boys who have committed crimes of a sexual nature.
New Care System for Young Offenders
On 1 January 1999 SiS was given a new task. A new punishment system, closed institutional care, was introduced to replace prison sentences for young offenders aged 15 - 17. They are given a fixed term of punish-ment, which may be anything from 14 days up to 4 years, and it shall be served at one of the homes for young people run by SiS. The young people who have been sentenced are placed in the same institutions and units as the young people who are being cared for under LVU (The Care of Young Persons (special provisions) Act). SiS was allocated funding for 10 places in 1999 but the need has turned out to be far greater. It seems as though there has been a long-felt need at the courts for a punishment form suited to the needs of the young people. At the present time there are around 60 young people serving their sentences at homes for young people. Working with closed institutional care is a challenging task since care and punishment are combined in the same system. The large number of sentences to closed institutional care has resulted in queues to the SiS homes for young people. We are now preparing for an increase of a further 50 places in the very near future
Margareta Wihlborg, Secretary of Planning
Website: http://www.stat-inst.se/
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