This article provides a close reading of the Swedish prime minister’s speech to the nation, held in September 2023 during a spiral of deadly shootings. From a criminological perspective it engages with the relation between policing a crisis and the crafting of a state project. Sweden’s punitive turn stands in sharp contrast to notions of the ‘Nordic model’ which was regarded as exceptionally humane. What, asks the author, are the main ideological features of the current Swedish government’s security state project?

Theoretically, the article draws from critical contributions on racism and security. The analysis shows that the discourse of the Swedish head of government targets racialised populations, within and without the borders of the nation. The policing of the current crisis should be conceptualised as a race to the bottom − in a dual sense. Firstly, it is a reconfiguration of Sweden’s race relations. Second, it is a drift along a militarisation continuum.