Victim Support Sweden has achieved a major milestone by becoming the sole recipient of all police-referred victims in Sweden, ensuring faster and more efficient access to support. Through a groundbreaking agreement with the Swedish Police Service, they now collaborate with 58+ organizations to streamline victim assistance, reducing administrative burdens and expanding local support networks. This new system, active since February 12, 2025, is already proving successful, with ongoing discussions to extend support to witnesses and victims’ families.
We are pleased to share a recent significant achievement by our member Victim Support Sweden. Victim Support Sweden has recently entered a formal agreement with the Swedish Police Service wherein VS Sweden is appointed the sole recipient of all victim referrals from the Police. Based on this agreement they have been given the responsibility of either handling the support cases ourselves or referring victims on to another NGO with specialized services, or a public service entity – according to the victims’ needs and wishes. The new referral process has been active since February 12th 2025 and it’s been a surprisingly smooth transition considering the old referral process had been running for more than 35 years.
After several years of dedicated work, we have finally signed an agreement with the Swedish police. This has been a challenging and lengthy process, but both we and the police recognize the significant benefits of this change and the deepened collaboration between us. We are already seeing the effects in the form of faster contact for those seeking support and time savings for everyone involved in the process. We also hope to include witnesses and relatives among those referred. We are confident that we will achieve our goal, which is for more people to receive support and faster
– Fredrik Mellqvist, VS Sweden Secretary General
Opt-In Police Referrals
In Sweden, when filing a report with the Police (or during the course of the investigation) victims have the opportunity to say yes to a referral to a victim support organisation. After having given their consent to send data to VS Sweden, the victim’s chosen/preferred support organisation is recorded by the Police (approx % of referrals):
- all-crime victim support (80%)
- gender based support services (14%)
- specialized social services (3%)
- other (3%)
This request, along with details such as gender, age group, crime type, and contact information is exported from the Police’s case management system along with all other referrals in a single, digitally importable format which is sent through secure transfer each weekday to our national 116 006 victim support helpline. The helpline is responsible for importing the data, transferring cases automatically to our local centres and to our new external partners.
Although Minerva, VS Sweden’s management system, was not initially designed for this purpose – it was built for case management and statistics for VS Sweden only – it has been successfully adapted to handle the new processes. A key improvement is the integration of external referrals: they are now collaborating with 58 other organisations and services across Sweden who receive their police referrals via VS Sweden. This network of support organisations continues to grow, with new collaborations being added every day. External partners can access case details through a secure login without any personal data being transferred via e-mail. In addition to the data transfer handled by 116 006, our local centres across Sweden are providing victims with more comprehensive information on what other services are available in their area and can make additional referrals with no data transfer.
Benefits of the new system
- Faster and more equal access to support: All crime victims are now receiving access to support faster than before, regardless of where in Sweden they’re located. No one will fall through the cracks – if someone’s preferred service is not available in their area, VS Sweden is always available.
- Improved efficiency: The administrative burden on the Police and our local centres is greatly reduced, freeing up resources for more important tasks.
- New support networks: Vs Sweden is present in every municipality in the country. We are now at the centre of a process where we’re building local and regional networks of NGOs and municipal services all working with victim support. This will improve individual victim’s chances of getting the support they need.
- Expansion possible Discussions with the police are underway to explore the possibility of extending referrals to include access to support to witnesses at an early point in the investigation, as well as family members of victims.
