Sverige prison guides

Swedish prisons: Kriminalvården guides and how anhöriga book visits

Kriminalvården runs remand (häkte) and prisons (anstalten) as related but not identical worlds. A Stockholm häkte visit is not a trip to Kumla. Sweden is transparent about rules and silent about names. Sweden’s 21 län (counties) are the map.

Häkte first, anstalt later

After an arrest, people often sit in a häkte attached to the investigation. Transfer to a classified anstalt can take time and can be far from the court town. Kumla, Hall, Saltvik and the open anstalter are not interchangeable booking queues.

How Sweden is carved up on this site

Sweden (Sverige) is a separate country folder — not a tab on a mixed European roster, and not a US state code. The analogue of a US state here is the first-level unit: Län (counties). Sweden’s 21 län (counties) are the map. Stockholm County is not Uppsala. Skåne is not Västra Götaland. Gotland is an island län. We use county slugs such as stockholm-county so they never collide with a town prison page. Open a län page when you already know the slice of Sweden; stay on this hub when you need the national rules, the official locator, and the list of those units.

Kriminalvården runs häkte (remand) and anstalter. A Stockholm häkte visit is not Kumla. Hall, Saltvik and open anstalter are separate queues. Rules are published; names are not. Facility articles under /sweden/ are building guides (address, operator, how a visit is booked). They are not who-is-inside tables. If a län has few prison guides, that is coverage on this site, not an empty prison system. Booking a visit in Oslo or Copenhagen because the flight was cheaper, or treating every Stockholm arrest as the same häkte.

Finding someone held in Sweden

Sweden does not publish a Google-style inmate spreadsheet. Kriminalvården is the named official route (www.kriminalvarden.se/). Kriminalvården family routes, not a database. After arrest people often sit in häkte while the investigation runs, then move far from the court town. Sweden does not publish who is in an anstalt or häkte. Use Kriminalvården’s official visit channels.

A US reader used to sheriff websites will type “Sweden inmate search” and find nothing of the kind. That is the law. Court lists, Facebook groups and paid “worldwide jail” products are not Kriminalvården. If the person was remanded overnight, reception can lag; if they were transferred out of the län you had in mind, the old desk is the wrong door. Use the län pages below to stop treating Stockholm as a synonym for the whole country.

Visits, money and staying in touch

Visiting in Sweden is not a US-style walk-up. Anhöriga book through Kriminalvården for that unit. ID, and the prisoner’s list. Open anstalter still need permission. Do not bring a Norwegian fengsel paper. Where a facility guide on this site quotes hours, they were taken from that establishment’s official page — re-check the day before you travel. This country hub will not invent a national timetable.

Dress codes, dog searches and what you may carry are house rules. Money and remote contact, where they exist, go through the official national channel — not a personal transfer to a cellmate. ARN and BMA for Stockholm; GOT for Gothenburg; MMX for Skåne. Kumla is an Örebro-län problem, not Arlanda. Øresund into Malmö is still Sweden — Copenhagen Vestre is Denmark.

Travel, borders and the wrong-gate problem

ARN and BMA for Stockholm; GOT for Gothenburg; MMX for Skåne. Kumla is an Örebro-län problem, not Arlanda. Øresund into Malmö is still Sweden — Copenhagen Vestre is Denmark. Print the gate address from the official prison page, not from a maps pin that only names Stockholm or “Swedish prison”. Neighbouring countries on this site have their own URLs; a cheaper flight into the next capital is not a visiting permit.

Booking a visit in Oslo or Copenhagen because the flight was cheaper, or treating every Stockholm arrest as the same häkte. If you only know a town name, match it to a län first, then to a facility guide. Confusing one län of Sweden with another is the most common way to book the wrong visit.

Län (counties) of Sweden — each on its own URL

Sweden is not mixed with the United States or with other European countries. Below is this country’s own first-level map (Län (counties)). Open a unit for a longer article on how custody, visits and travel actually work there. US readers looking for a county inmate spreadsheet will not find one: Sweden does not publish that, and neither do we.

Län (counties)

21 pages, written so Sweden does not collapse into a single mixed list. This is the analogue of opening a US state after you choose the United States.

county · KarlskronaBlekinge CountyBlekinge länBlekinge County is Sweden’s small southeastern coast, seated in Karlskrona, with Karlshamn, Ronneby, Sölvesborg and Olofström completing a map you can misunderstand as “all one town.” It is not. Naval Karlskrona has a famous archipelago and a court. It does not publish who is in custody. Kriminalvården does that work nationally, without a public name list, and a sentence that starts in Blekinge often continues in another county’s anstalt.Open this area →county · FalunDalarna CountyDalarnas länDalarna County is seated in Falun and lived in, just as much, in Borlänge. Mora, Ludvika, Avesta, Hedemora, Malung-Sälen and Älvdalen stretch from old mine country to ski country and the Norwegian border inland. Kriminalvården holds remand in häkte and sentences in anstalt, with no public names. The county’s problem for families is distance and winter, plus the habit of saying “Dalarna” when the letter has already moved the person to a closed prison in another län.Open this area →county · GävleGävleborg CountyGävleborgs länGävleborg County meets the Baltic at Gävle, its seat, and again at Hudiksvall and Söderhamn, with Sandviken, Bollnäs and Ljusdal inland. It is a long county. Southern towns think in Stockholm trains. Northern towns think in a coastal journey that visitors from the capital underestimate. Kriminalvården runs any häkte or anstalt and does not publish names. A Gävle case and a Hudiksvall case are not one visit with a scenic stop.Open this area →county · VisbyGotland CountyGotlands länGotland County is the island, seated in Visby, with no road to the mainland at all. Every visit is a ferry from Nynäshamn or Oskarshamn, or a flight into Visby Airport, plus the weather’s permission. Kriminalvården still owns custody, and it still does not publish names. The island’s custody footprint is small. A Visby arrest often becomes a mainland häkte or anstalt placement, and families who book a week in the medieval city without checking are the usual casualties.Open this area →county · HalmstadHalland CountyHallands länHalland County is the Kattegat coast between Gothenburg and Skåne, seated in Halmstad, with Varberg, Falkenberg, Kungsbacka and Laholm along the E6. The name is a trap. Anstalten Hall, the closed prison near Södertälje, is not in Halland. It is grouped on this site with Södermanland. Families who search “Hall” and book Halmstad have confused a province with a gate. Kriminalvården holds people under national rules and does not publish a name list.Open this area →county · ÖstersundJämtland CountyJämtlands länJämtland County includes both Jämtland and Härjedalen. Östersund is the seat, on the lake between the mountains and the east. Åre is the ski town. Sveg is the Härjedalen centre. Strömsund is a long road north. The Norwegian border at Storlien points toward Trondheim. Kriminalvården does not publish names, and this county’s closed capacity is not a place to assume someone remains just because the crime was local. Confirm the establishment before you trust a mountain itinerary.Open this area →county · JönköpingJönköping CountyJönköpings länJönköping County stretches along the southern end of Lake Vättern and south through Småland towns: Värnamo, Nässjö, Eksjö, Vetlanda, Tranås and Gislaved. Jönköping is the seat. It is also the home of Göta hovrätt, the court of appeal for a wide belt of southern Sweden. That fact pulls families here for hearings that began in other counties. Custody is still Kriminalvården’s, and it still comes with no public name list.Open this area →county · KalmarKalmar CountyKalmar länKalmar County is a long Baltic strip, seated in Kalmar, with Västervik in the north, Oskarshamn and the ferry to Gotland, Vimmerby inland, Nybro, and the island of Öland linked by the bridge at Kalmar. Custody belongs to Kriminalvården. The county’s shape is the practical problem: towns that share a län do not share a short bus ride. There is no public list of detainees, and a coastal arrest is not a coastal sentence by default.Open this area →county · VäxjöKronoberg CountyKronobergs länKronoberg County is inland Småland, seated in Växjö, with Ljungby on the E4, Alvesta on the main line, Älmhult, Tingsryd and Markaryd filling the forest. It is a small län with a long distance between “nearby” towns. Kriminalvården holds people in häkte or anstalt under national rules and does not publish names. A Växjö prosecution is not a promise that the sentence will be served beside the lake in town.Open this area →county · LuleåNorrbotten CountyNorrbottens länNorrbotten County is Sweden’s northern end, seated in Luleå, with Piteå, Boden, Kalix, Haparanda, Gällivare and Kiruna spread across ore country, river valleys and the Finnish border. Midnight sun and polar night are not moods. They change what a same-day plan can be. Kriminalvården does not publish names. A Kiruna case and a Luleå gate are different expeditions, and a sentence may leave the county entirely after classification.Open this area →county · ÖrebroÖrebro CountyÖrebro länÖrebro County is the Svealand crossroads, seated in Örebro, with Kumla, Hallsberg, Karlskoga, Lindesberg, Nora and Askersund around it. Two national names live here. Anstalten Kumla, in the town of Kumla, is a major closed men’s prison. Anstalten Hinseberg, near Frövi in the Lindesberg area, is Sweden’s closed prison for women. Kriminalvården runs both, publishes nobody’s name, and receives people from far outside this county. A Kumla visit is often not an Örebro crime at all.Open this area →county · LinköpingÖstergötland CountyÖstergötlands länÖstergötland County runs from the Baltic in the east to Lake Vättern in the west, with Linköping as its seat and Norrköping as the other large city. Motala, Mjölby and Finspång fill the corridor between them. Custody is national, under Kriminalvården, with häkte for remand and anstalt for sentences. Nobody publishes a name list. A prosecution in Linköping can still end with a visit far outside the county once classification is finished.Open this area →county · MalmöSkåne CountySkåne länSkåne County is Sweden’s southern gate, seated in Malmö, with Lund, Helsingborg, Kristianstad, Landskrona, Ystad, Trelleborg and Ängelholm spread across a densely used plain. The Öresund Bridge ties Malmö to Copenhagen, so many visits begin in Denmark by accident or design. Kriminalvården runs custody and publishes no names. The county has more than one establishment. “The Malmö prison” is not a precise instruction, and a Skåne court does not lock the person to Skåne for the whole sentence.Open this area →county · NyköpingSödermanland CountySödermanlands länSödermanland County has its seat in Nyköping and its population weight in Eskilstuna, with Strängnäs, Katrineholm, Flen, Trosa, Gnesta and the port of Oxelösund along the coast and the lakes. Kriminalvården runs custody nationally. On this site, Anstalten Hall is the closed prison grouped with Södermanland. The gate itself is at Hall, near Södertälje, on the border with Stockholm County. Families who drive to Nyköping town hall looking for Hall are in the wrong municipality.Open this area →county · StockholmStockholm CountyStockholms länStockholm County runs from Norrtälje’s archipelago through the capital to Södertälje and Södertörn. Prisons belong to Kriminalvården, not the county: häkte for remand, anstalt for sentences, and no public name list. Families usually meet Häktet Stockholm first, then sometimes a closed prison such as Hall near Södertälje or Kumla in Örebro County. Court catchments split the län between Stockholm, Solna, Attunda, Nacka and Södertörn. This page shows how to confirm a placement and plan a visit without copying a timetable off a forum.Open this area →county · UppsalaUppsala CountyUppsala länUppsala County sits immediately north of the capital, with the university city as its seat and Enköping, Tierp and Östhammar spreading toward Mälaren and the Baltic. Kriminalvården, not the county council, runs any häkte or anstalt that serves local courts. There is no public roster of names. A charge at Uppsala tingsrätt does not promise the person will still be in Uppsala when you arrive. This page explains placement, visits and the Arlanda mix-up that catches almost every visiting family.Open this area →county · KarlstadVärmland CountyVärmlands länVärmland County sits on Lake Vänern and on the Norwegian border, seated in Karlstad, with Kristinehamn, Arvika, Säffle, Hagfors, Filipstad and Torsby stretching into forest and Finnskog. Oslo can be closer than Stockholm for the western municipalities. That geography makes families ask Norwegian police about a Swedish prisoner. The answer is no. Custody is Kriminalvården’s, names are not published, and a Karlstad case may be served far from both Karlstad and Oslo.Open this area →county · UmeåVästerbotten CountyVästerbottens länVästerbotten County is seated in Umeå, a university and hospital city, and reaches the coast at Skellefteå and the mountains through Lycksele, Storuman and Vilhelmina. The inland and the coast are different expeditions. Kriminalvården holds people without publishing names. A family that lands in Umeå for a Skellefteå establishment, or drives to Lycksele because the arrest was there and the placement is not, is meeting the county’s actual size for the first time.Open this area →county · HärnösandVästernorrland CountyVästernorrlands länVästernorrland County has its seat in Härnösand and its largest city in Sundsvall, with Örnsköldsvik, Sollefteå and Kramfors completing a coast and a river valley. Families fly to Sundsvall-Timrå and assume the prison is there. Anstalten Saltvik is near Härnösand, a different town along the High Coast. Kriminalvården runs it, and runs remand, and publishes no names. The county seat and the biggest airport city are not the same pin.Open this area →county · VästeråsVästmanland CountyVästmanlands länVästmanland County faces Lake Mälaren at Västerås, its seat and largest city, and runs inland through Köping, Arboga, Hallstahammar, Fagersta and Sala toward Bergslagen. Two closed prisons are part of the county’s story: Anstalten Tillberga in Västerås, and Anstalten Salberga in Sala. They are Kriminalvården establishments, not municipal jails, and neither publishes a list of names. A Västerås commuter from Stockholm is not already at the right gate.Open this area →county · VänersborgVästra Götaland CountyVästra Götalands länVästra Götaland is Sweden’s western giant. The county seat is Vänersborg, not Gothenburg, although Gothenburg is the city everyone means. Borås, Trollhättan, Uddevalla, Skövde, Lidköping and Mariestad are full cities inside the same län, with Bohuslän’s coast and the shore of Lake Vänern at opposite edges. Kriminalvården runs häkte and anstalt. It does not publish names. A Gothenburg arrest and a Tidaholm sentence are both “this county” and not the same day out.Open this area →

Prison guides in Sweden

Each page is written for that establishment — address, how families actually locate someone, and how visits work — not a copied country intro.

Södermanland

Södertälje · Anstalt (closed)Anstalten HallAnstalten Hall near Södertälje is the closed estate south of Stockholm — Kriminalvården’s visit desk, not the capital häkte’s quick remand rhythm.Read the guide →

Örebro

Kumla · Anstalt (closed)Anstalten KumlaKumla is Sweden’s heavy closed anstalt in Närke — the name families hear after Stockholm häkte phase ends, with Kriminalvården visit rules and no public register.Read the guide →

Stockholm

Stockholm · Häkte (remand)Häktet StockholmStockholm häkte is remand world — short, tightly booked anhörig visits after arrest, before anstalten like Kumla or Hall enter the picture.Read the guide →

Questions families actually ask

Is there a Swedish inmate search?
No. Kriminalvården confirms placement through official family routes, not a public database.
Does CurrentPrisonList list who is in jail in Sweden today?
No. Sweden pages are geographic and procedural guides. Sweden does not publish who is in an anstalt or häkte. Use Kriminalvården’s official visit channels.
Why does Sweden have Län (counties) instead of one mixed list?
Sweden’s 21 län (counties) are the map. Stockholm County is not Uppsala. Skåne is not Västra Götaland. Gotland is an island län. We use county slugs such as stockholm-county so they never collide with a town prison page. Mixing those units would be the same mistake as putting Ohio inmates under California.
How do I visit a prison in Sweden?
Identify the establishment through Kriminalvården or the lawyer, get on the visitor list, and book that house. Anhöriga book through Kriminalvården for that unit. ID, and the prisoner’s list. Open anstalter still need permission. Do not bring a Norwegian fengsel paper. Plan travel via Stockholm only if the letter actually names a house there — the län pages exist because it often does not.

Other countries

Each country is a separate area of the site so US county rosters, UK prisons and European JVA / maison d’arrêt guides never share a URL.

GBUnited Kingdom13 Nations and regions · 140 prison guidesDEGermanyDeutschland16 Länder (federal states) · 10 prison guidesFRFranceFrance13 Régions · 8 prison guidesDKDenmarkDanmark5 Regions · 3 prison guidesIEIrelandÉire26 Counties · 4 prison guidesNLNetherlandsNederland12 Provinces · 3 prison guidesBEBelgiumBelgië / Belgique13 Regions and provinces · 3 prison guidesESSpainEspaña17 Autonomous communities · 3 prison guides

All countries →

Source

Confirm location, visits and hours on the official service. This site does not list who is in custody.

Official locatorKriminalvårdenOpen official site →