The battle to staunch the deadly rise in youth crime rates

In the small Swedish city of Örebro, guns are so easy to come by that social services say most of the high-risk young people they work with in relation to youth crime could get hold of one in a day

- Miranda Bryant

"The contacts are there if you want them. Drugs they could get even faster," said Sabrina Farlblad at the city's social services offices, where two years ago her team formed support groups for young people deemed at risk of becoming involved in violence.

So far the preventive approach appears to be working but fears remain while illegal guns - largely from the Balkans, according to police - are relatively accessible. As younger children some as young as 10-are recruited into the drug trade, the number using guns with deadly consequences is rising.

Last month a boy in his early teens was arrested after a man died in a shooting in the southern city of Helsingborg. In a separate case, two 14-year-old boys were found dead in forest areas, reportedly murdered because they did not do tasks on behalf of a criminal network. The scale of the problem prompted a plan by the government to make it easier for schools, social services and police to share information and stop young people being pulled into crime by identifying at-risk children early.