Sweden's Consent-Based Rape Law (2018) — Brå's Two Reviews of Prosecutions and Convictions

On 1 July 2018 Sweden amended its Criminal Code so that sexual intercourse with a person who is not participating voluntarily is rape, replacing the earlier requirement of violence, threats or a particularly vulnerable situation. A new offence of negligent rape was added.
The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) reviewed 362 district court judgments on consummated rape of a woman from 2019, plus 37 appeal court judgments and one Supreme Court judgment. It described its findings as preliminary and not a definitive picture.
In a 2025 follow-up covering 2023, Brå found 376 rape convictions and 121 convictions in 'new' cases (non-consensual participation alone), nearly double the 2019 figure; 26 were for negligent rape. Prosecutions rose from 236 in 2017 to 455 in 2020. Reports rose from just under 4,000 in 2015 to about 6,500 in 2021, which Brå says mainly continues a trend that began before 2018. Person-based clearance rose from 7% in 2017 to 11% in 2023.
Limits: about 90% of reports still do not lead to a prosecution, 'new' cases generally have less supporting evidence, and Brå found demarcation problems that may jeopardise legal certainty, especially for negligent rape. The evidence is descriptive and cannot isolate the law's causal effect.

Read the full analysis: https://bra.se/english/publications/archive/2020-07-01-the-new-consent-law-in-practice