Swede here, shit is BAD, but this is relative to how things used to be before this shit started, so in relative global terms Sweden is still a damn good place to live.
That being said, this behavior should be seen as a warning to not take culture clashes lightly.
I am sure I am going to catch a lot of heat for this, but damn it, it needs to be said.
The gangs we see are a direct result of a terribly run migration policy.
We have taken in far, far, far too many migrants in a way, way, way too short ammount of time.
This combined with a integration policy that keeps failing over and over as we continously refuse to enforce even the most basic attempt by migrants to integrate. There are many migrants who has lived in Sweden for many years without speaking either Swedish or English, they still have a right to free interpretors when dealing with doctors and government services, this is fucking mental.
We have punnishments and laws fitting Swedes from the 1960s or so, they don't do shit against the modern gangs.
So what needs to be done?
Start actually deporting criminals, log their DNA and give them a lifetime ban on returning, check all migrants against this database.
To those born in Sweden, start instituting extra long prison terms for criminals who keep reoffending.
Enforce learning the Swedish language and check compliance with in-person tests, and mandatory lessons. If you need an interpreter after 3 years, you have to pay for it yourself.
Wait, why would anyone have the right to free interpreters at any time? That sounds like such a waste of public resources and like you said, enables people to never even try to learn the language.
As an initial concept, it is resonable to help people get the care they need even if they don't speak the language, but after 5 years of working to live here you should be expected to be able to communicate without an interpreter, even if it is not fluent.
I am down with this and even some more, except regarding having to pay for interpreters after 3 years. Working folks are hardly going to have the time to learn a whole ass language to proficiency in just 3 years, especially with kids to take care of
I moved to France,not able to speak a word, and within 3 years, I was working in a french only environment. It's difficult, and I won't pretend that everyone will have my luck, and opportunities,but it's not unreasonable either.
Good for you, but an older person, especially near retiring age would not be able to pick up a language that quickly normally. Especially with the depth required to handle complex legal or medical matters, while also working full time just to make ends meet. And if on top of that, they are taking care of kids, which is a very common scenario for older migrants, that seems like too much of a stretch.
I agree, it's very difficult to change habits as you get older, but the hardest thing is to put yourself out there, and not be afraid of making mistakes, and actually put in the monumental effort required to integrate. Older people who I have met, are more likely to find a bubble of people who speak the same language.
I was lucky, I was only 28 when I arrived, and my wife is french, hence why I am lucky.
It is not so much a matter of changing habits, often migrants such as my parents take their elderly with them to the new country, leave their kids with them, and go to work, so their elderly parents get stuck in a new country, without speaking the language and being basically the only guardian their grandkids have.
Hell, my grandmother went from being a teacher in the old country, to a nanny who never managed to learn how to speak the local language, despite learning how to read and write in it, to a college level.
Most languages are far from phonetically true, and a lot of languages lack written accents. Things aren't as black and white as you make them seem.
Our ability to learn simply degrades a lot even in our 30s-40s, and for elderly it's just impossible. Read and write - maybe, but actually speaking - no, and it's not a matter of effort.
If you need to use a language for ten years in a fully immersed setting and have not learned conversational level skills, the issue is that you didn't really try, no matter your age.
I can understand if someone has a learning disability, but that is a small fraction of people.
Imagine utiliser un ordinateur chaque jour pendant 10 ans et ne pas savoir comment l'utiliser. Est-ce que c'est un problème de l'outil qui est trop difficile ou un problème utilisateur?
Si pendant 10 ans , tu résides dans un pays sans en apprendre le langage, est-ce que c'est un problème du langage ou de la personne qui le parle?
Les vieilles personnes sont capables d'apprendre, bien qu'en vieillissant, notre capacité d'assimilation de l'information et de la connaissance diminue. Il faut donc mettre plus d'effort pour apprendre, mais rien d'impossible.
De mon expérience, les vieilles personnes qui n'ont jamais appris la langue de leur pays d'accueil, c'est parce qu'il se sont toujours fiés à quelqu'un d'autre pour traduire. Ce n'est pas un problème d'apprentissage, c'est un problème d'attitude. C'est acceptable au début lorsque la personne arrive fraichement dans le pays d'accueil, mais si après 10 ans, il te faut encore un traducteur pour commander au restaurant, c'est un problème de ne jamais avoir essayé.
Enfin, mon point initial a toujours été d'avoir un niveau conversationnel, pas technique.
Même dans notre langue maternelle, c'est normal de ne pas comprendre le jargon technique.
Edit: j'ai changé un mot pour que mon français soit plus neutre.
Deportations, as in after commiting a crime, should be on the table instantly for violent crimes commited by migrants.
Note that I am not talking about general deportations of normal, well adjusted migrants, but migrants commiting violent crimes.
As for language and culture classes, we allready offer them for free to all migrants, Svenska För Invandrare, it is however critisized for only offering low quallity classes, which is a big problem that needs to be adressed.
My wife signed on for SFI after she moved, and found that the level and expectations were so low she had difficulty staying engaged with the classes and course material.
She looked into private tutoring and was fluent in Swedish in 4 months, and ended up teaching Swedish to highschool aged kids after just 2.5 years.
To this day she wonders if SFI wasn't secretly designed to push anyone with any kind of ambition out of the system.
I personally think it's a case of bigotry of low expectations, but it's clear it really doesn't work for the intended purpose.
This tracks with what I have heard about it, and also tracks with my expectations of the Swedish government in cases like these, they dumb it down to the lowest possible standard to get good stats on the usage and success rate of it.