‘A bandage on a gunshot wound’: why Sweden is failing on gang violence

Sebastian Stakset says the young people he works with lack hope, while the government’s plan – harsher punishments for younger children – will not work. Photograph: Josefine Stenersen/The Guardian

Sebastian Stakset has lost 38 friends to gang violence – many of whom, he points out from the window of his non-profit’s Stockholm base, are buried in Skogskyrkogården cemetery on the opposite side of the metro track.

Close by, the rapper and reformed gang member points to another personal landmark from the neighbourhood he grew up in: the psychiatric clinic. “After a suicide attempt, I ended up there,” says the 38-year-old.