Could there be any particular reason why this has become more popular? Is gang violence up in general? New release of the anarchy cookbook perhaps haha?
- More chance of getting away with it vs (attempted) assassination, since you usually don't cause bodily injury or death (so police divert less resources to the crime) and you are well away on your scooter when the explosion happens. Lately more have been getting caught however. Still the punishment then is less than with (attempted) murder.
- More kids willing to do it, because punishment is lower, and chance to get caught is lower.
- Besides the intimidating effect, it creates pressure on the victim by the neighbors and the government, because they now suspect the victim is a criminal and want it to stop. It can even lead to eviction.
All in all in pretty good way to pester your enemies without escalating to murder.
That's somewhat of a pet peeve I have with the Swedish situation. Due to the country's transparency principles (which I in general consider a good thing), everyone's registered address and other personal details are easily searchable online for everybody through numerous different services. Including who you live with, and lots of other information. So basically, to use US lingo, the government is doxxing everyone by default.
There's no way to opt out of this, except if you are already subject to a documented threat (but then it's obviously already too late and you likely are forced to move), or if you belong to a small group of professions that might be considered particularly vulnerable.
In consequence, you can easily and anonymously look up where your enemies, or their relatives, live. I don't see how this is not contributing to the problem. Potentially even being one of its major drivers. However, there's basically zero public or political debate about changing this part. In fact, most people in Sweden are completely oblivious to the idea that it could be different. That as a citizen you might want to have the right to choose whether your address is available to the public or not. Even though that choice is the norm in most countries, afaik.
So I find that totally annoying. Making it harder to look up where someone lives, would likely, over time, reduce the number of attacks on buildings (which not only include bombs, but also shootings at buildings).
There are probably tens of thousands of households across Sweden who experience an elevated risk of being exposed to bombings or shootings, as gang-related individuals (or their family members) are living in their buildings. So this is a real crisis, I would say.
For Sweden in the particular, I believe they also have an idiot compassion problem in their judicial system beyond even most "progressive" justice systems. So for example, if you're under 15 you cannot go to juvenile jail in Sweden because it does not exist. End result, gangs were recruiting 15s and under. I'm not entirely sure if Sweden ever got around to changing that.