Detention without oversight: The Swedish National Audit Office on deprivation of liberty in the return process

RiR 2025:32 indicates that detention costs exceed one billion, that proportionality is often lacking in the decisions, and that Migrationsverket and the police do not control who is detained—even though the government plans for 1,000 places by 2029.

Summary: In November 2025, the Swedish National Audit Office found that Sweden's detention operations are not functioning effectively. The report Detention in the Migration Process – An Expensive Tool Without Clear Governance (RiR 2025:32) highlights deficiencies in decision-making, cooperation, and operations: weak proportionality assessments, insufficient prioritization of spaces, police assistance requests that can remain pending for months, and coercive measures that are sometimes routinely implemented in violation of regulations.

In March 2026, the government responded in Skr. 2025/26:137. It welcomed the review, partially agreed with the recommendations, and then declared the matter closed. Meanwhile, the system is being expanded: from 593 places at the end of 2024 towards the goal of 1,000 places by 2029. The legal certainty issue being examined here is not whether return can exist, but whether the state can detain individuals without being able to demonstrate that the measure is necessary, proportionate, and effective.

What the Swedish National Audit Office Actually Says

The report is not a political pamphlet on migration. It poses an audit question: are the state's efforts in detention operations effective? The answer is no, on three levels.

The Decisions. The authorities do not create sufficient conditions for well-considered detention decisions. The focus is on legal grounds; proportionality and strategic prioritization receive too little emphasis.
Cooperation. Migrationsverket relies on police assistance for service and transport. Requests are not always prioritized, decisions can remain pending for months, and in some cases, are overturned while individuals manage to abscond. The allocation of places has effectively become an informal arrangement where the police are often given precedence.
The Operations. Migrationsverket has not managed the operational activities with clear goals and systematic follow-up. Routine coercive and control measures occur in violation of regulations, there are variations in local standards, and a training deficit among detention supervisors.

The Swedish National Audit Office links this to two simultaneous risks: unnecessary suffering for the individual and high costs for the state. It is an unusually clear formulation: inefficiency here is not just budget waste, but incorrect or unnecessary deprivation of liberty.

Proportionality: The Legal Text Exists, the Justification is Missing

Detention may only be used if it is necessary, effective, and proportionate. There must be reasonable prospects for removal. Less intrusive alternatives – primarily supervision – should be considered. From August 1, 2025, there is also an explicit proportionality rule in the Aliens Act.

However, the Swedish National Audit Office shows that the guidance is weak. The Police Authority largely lacks written routines explaining how proportionality and effectiveness should be assessed. Migrationsverket has more documentation, but the support for the actual balancing of interests is thin. Interviewed decision-makers describe that the assessment should be made, but provide no consistent picture of how.

The Swedish Red Cross has found the same pattern in several legal investigations – including the report Detention Under Scrutiny with nearly 1,000 decisions and judgments: the proportionality assessment is missing or incomplete, and supervision is used less frequently than the legislator intended. The Swedish National Audit Office reports that the deficiencies are consistently visible in the Police Authority's decisions, and that Migrationsverket in the majority of cases has not documented a complete proportionality assessment despite the decision template requiring it. The lack of justification itself violates the Administrative Procedure Act, even if some internal consideration may have occurred.

A legal rule that is not visible in the decision is not a guarantee of legal certainty. It is an ambition.

Lack of Space Without Prioritization Becomes Arbitrary

When spaces are fewer than needed, someone must be left out. The Swedish National Audit Office notes that the authorities do not work strategically with that prioritization. Individuals are sometimes released from detention to make room for more urgent cases. This means that detention is not only governed by legal grounds but also by queue, capacity, and informal distribution habits.

According to the report, the police have had a draft prioritization memorandum for three years without finalizing it – and decided not to produce a governing document, citing that the individual proportionality assessment should be the focus. It sounds like legal certainty, but without methodological support and follow-up, "individual assessment" is difficult to distinguish from local practice variation.

Migrationsverket has an internal prioritization order based on the premise that enforcement should be possible within two months. The Swedish National Audit Office still finds it unclear how it is applied. The result is a system where the state builds more locked places without first being able to show which cases are effective – and which mostly generate daily costs.

Police Assistance: The Decision That Is Not Enforced

When Migrationsverket decides on detention, police are often required for service and transport. The Swedish National Audit Office describes long waiting times – in some cases months – and ineffective searches, such as home visits in the middle of the day when the person is reportedly working. Meanwhile, the decision can be overturned or the person can abscond.

This creates a rule of law paradox. For those who are quickly detained, the issue of proportionality becomes acute. For those whose decisions remain unprocessed, the issue instead becomes predictability and equal treatment: two individuals with similar legal grounds can receive entirely different outcomes depending on whether police assistance is prioritized. The state then has both a detaining power and a queue for that power.

Inside the Detention Center: Routine Coercion and Educational Debt

The Swedish National Audit Office has visited the three largest detention centers and interviewed staff, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, and the Red Cross. The observations concern not only administration. Coercive and control measures are sometimes carried out routinely in violation of regulations. The standard of the facilities varies. Activity requirements are not always met. There is a lack of competence supply, especially among detention supervisors, leading to an educational debt that increases the risk of incidents and poor treatment.

Here, legal certainty becomes concrete. A correct decision can still be executed in a manner that violates the requirement for humane treatment and minimal intrusion. Conversely, deficient operations can make it harder to maintain order without escalating coercion. When the government simultaneously expands the possibilities for control measures at detention centers—and incorporates proportionality into the law—education, documentation, and follow-up are not appendices. They are prerequisites for the legislative change to mean anything.

The Government's Response: Partial Agreement, Then Concluded

In Skr. 2025/26:137, the government welcomes the review and states that it is a valuable basis for effective and legally certain detention operations. It agrees partially with the recommendations and points to previous assignments on cooperation, strategic use of detention, and shorter time between registration and departure. The report is then declared concluded.

It is a classic governance response: acknowledge the problem, refer to ongoing assignments, close the file. But the core of the Swedish National Audit Office remains as a follow-up question. Do the Police Authority and Migrationsverket have a common prioritization order based on effectiveness, goal fulfillment, and legal certainty? Is there methodological support that makes proportionality testable? Is the proportion of decisions without documented interest balancing decreasing? Are police assistance times shortened? Are routine coercive measures decreasing?

Without public statistics on these points, it is impossible to determine whether the government's assignments change the detention—or just the expansion rate.

Five Measures That Should Be Published

Proportion of detention decisions with documented proportionality assessment, divided between Migrationsverket and the Police Authority.
Proportion of cases where supervision was considered and chosen instead of detention.
Waiting time from detention decision to executed police assistance, including decisions that are overturned during the wait.
Proportion of detention stays that end with actual removal versus release without execution.
Number and type of coercive and control measures per detention center, with information on education and deviations from regulations.

If the state is to expand to 1,000 places, these measures are more important than the number of places itself. Otherwise, the expansion risks scaling a system that the Swedish National Audit Office has already assessed as poorly governed.

Conclusion

RiR 2025:32 does not show that every detention decision is incorrect. It shows that the state detains people in a system where decision guidance, place allocation, cooperation, and operations do not meet the level that detention requires. The cost—over one billion kronor and approximately 5,500 kronor per day—makes the deficiency visible even in budgetary terms. But the legal core is simpler: those who detain must be able to show why, why not a milder measure, and what the detention is actually supposed to achieve.

As long as proportionality is missing in the justification, police assistance creates arbitrariness, and operations are characterized by educational debt, detention is not just a tool in return. It is a stress test on the rule of law in the migration process. The government's statement administratively closes the review. The public follow-up should keep it open.

FAQ

What is detention?
A deprivation of liberty where a foreigner without the right to stay in Sweden is placed in locked accommodation, primarily to enable deportation or expulsion.

Who decides?
Both Migrationsverket and the Police Authority. Migrationsverket operates the detention centers. The police are often needed for service and transport.

What does the Swedish National Audit Office say?
That the operations do not function effectively: weak decision processes, insufficient cooperation, and deficient management of operations, with a risk of unnecessary suffering and high costs.

Has the government done anything?
It has, among other things, incorporated proportionality into the Aliens Act from August 1, 2025, given cooperation assignments, and responded to the report in March 2026. Whether it has changed practice must be shown with data.

Is this legal advice?
No. The text is a review of public sources. Individual detention cases require their own assessment based on the file and applicable law.