Sweden has pulled its gun violence back down toward old levels, but the government that did it was voted out over the economy.

• Shootings peaked in 2022 and have since fallen sharply, with murder rates at their lowest in a decade.
• The crackdown combined stop-and-search zones, anonymous witnesses, harsher penalties for using kids in crime, and a lower age of criminal responsibility.
• Sweden also leaned on Turkey, Iraq, the UAE and Morocco to arrest gang bosses who were running the violence from abroad.
• Voters moved on: unemployment is high, living costs bit hard, and the economy replaced crime as the top concern.
• The far-right Sweden Democrats, the face of the crackdown, lost ground as their headscarf ban and repatriation plans alienated moderates.

Outlook: An incoming left-leaning government has called the tough-on-crime policies misguided and may roll some back, raising the risk that gang violence creeps up again.