| 1. |
- Axnäs, Nina, 1973-
(författare)
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Utredningsbara misshandelsbrott? : En studie av polisens förutsättningar och förmåga att utreda och klara upp misshandelsbrott
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The police are involved in almost all phases of a criminal investigation, starting with the crime itself and ending in court. The clearance rate is a core issue. If this rate is low or decreases, perpetrators will not be prosecuted and sentenced, and the police will be criticized. If this is to be rectified it is necessary to understand why it happens (causes).The aim of this study has been to investigate the prerequisites for the investigation of assault crimes and the police's ability to solve these crimes. The objective has been to produce knowledge for a follow-up model that can provide a more multifaceted picture of the police investigation results, beyond just reported preliminary investigation protocols (FUP).The data consist of 384 police reports regarding assaults that were assessed to be non-serious. In line with the aim of the study, the study employs a Swedish equivalent of the Evidence-Based Investigative Tool (EBIT) (McFadzien et al., 2020; Sherman, 2018).Rational decision theory (March, 1994) has been applied, along with theories focused on the way street bureaucracies manage and prioritize among an incessant influx of cases (Lipsky, 2010) and on various mechanisms that influence the approaches employed (Brodkin, 2011a; Jönsson, 2021). As a measure of the prerequisites for police investigations, a number of basic variables have been employed to reflect whether there is an identified victim, who then cooperates with the investigation, and an identifiable perpetrator. Other basic variables reflect whether there are witnesses, or surveillance cameras that may have captured the incident. As a measure of the police's investigative ability, the study employs variables focused on whether victims and witnesses have been interrogated and whether the police have checked/obtained footage from surveillance cameras.The results show that the conditions for investigating assault are not optimal. Only one third of cases meet all the specified requirements. In about 75 percent of these cases, the police had carried out the investigative measures that were possible. In the remaining investigations, the victims had not been interviewed, the police had not questioned witnesses, or they had not checked and retrieve surveillance footage. To some extent this might be explained by the fact that the reported crime was minor, that the case included information about a counter allegation, the crime would be difficult to prove, or a claim of self-defense difficult to disprove.The study’s results are in several respects neither unexpected nor remarkable. According to the Swedish Police’s national investigative strategy, high priority must be given to cases of domestic violence and only crimes that are expected to lead to prosecution should be investigated. However, there were also some surprising findings: The police succeeded in confirming or disproving assault in 29 percent of all reported non-serious assault crimes. Solving reported crimes is not always equivalent to prosecuting.Finally, the results indicate that a tool for predicting clearance could be utilized to reduce the workload of Principal Investigators. However, this would require more extensive investigative measures to be undertaken at the time the crime report is initially registered. The results show that the documentation on which decisions are based is in many cases insufficient for an assessment of whether or not a prosecution is likely, since it lacks information on the presence or absence of witnesses or surveillance cameras, and whether these substantiate the crime.
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| 2. |
- Chrysoulakis, Alberto P., et al.
(författare)
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From structural time use to situational rule-breaking : Analysing adolescents’ time use and the person-setting interaction
- 2023
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Ingår i: European Journal of Criminology. - : Sage Publications. - 1477-3708 .- 1741-2609. ; 20:6, s. 1804-1828
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers is associated with delinquency, less is known about to what extent it fits within adolescents’ daily routine activities; that is, their general, structural time use. Furthermore, research informed by the situational action theory shows that unstructured socialising increases the probability of rule-breaking acts more for individuals with higher crime propensity. Hence, structural time use might explain patterns of unstructured socialising, and crime propensity might explain why some are at an increased risk of committing rule-breaking acts during such situations. The present study aims to connect these three aspects and examine: (i) how adolescents tend to structure their time use, (ii) if their structural time use differentially places them in unstructured socialising, and (iii) whether some adolescents during unstructured socialising run an elevated risk of committing rule-breaking acts due to their morality (as part of their crime propensity) while also taking their structural time use into account. Using a sample of 512 adolescents (age 16) in Sweden, time use and morality are analysed using latent class analysis based on space-time budget data and a self-report questionnaire. Multilevel linear probability models are utilised to examine how rule-breaking acts result from an interaction between an individual’s morality and unstructured socialising, also taking structural time use into account. Results show that the likelihood of unstructured socialising in private but not in public is different across identified latent classes. Adolescents, in general, run an elevated risk of rule-breaking acts during unstructured socialising, irrespective of structural time use. In this study, these acts consist mainly of alcohol consumption. However, the risk is higher for adolescents with lower morality. Adolescents’ time use may account for a general pattern of delinquency, but accounting for rule-breaking acts requires knowledge of the interaction between person and setting.
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| 3. |
- Chrysoulakis, Alberto P., 1987-
(författare)
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Situational sources of rule-breaking acts : an analytic criminology approach
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Criminology has long been divided by mainly focusing on people’s propensities to commit crimes, on the one hand, and environmental characteristics conducive to crime, on the other. Such a division must be bridged to advance knowledge about why some people, but not others, commit rule-breaking acts in some environments but not in others. Furthermore, explanations require causal mechanisms explaining how the outcome, a rule-breaking act, is produced. Analytic Criminology offers a general framework for how to theoretically and empirically structure the study of crime. It does so by connecting macro- and micro-levels – structuring the convergence of certain people in certain places – through a mechanistic account. Within this framework, the situational action theory (SAT) proposes a causal mechanism explaining how said convergence triggers the perception-choice process: a rule-breaking act must first be perceived to be subsequently chosen. The main drivers during this process are the person’s crime propensity and the criminogeneity of the behaviour setting. Identifying the central components also enables the theorising of changes in crime involvement, which is the subject of the developmental ecological action (DEA) model of SAT. Drawing on data from the longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study, this thesis aimed to test SAT and its DEA model, thus bridging said division. It did so through four studies with specific reference to adolescents’ crime propensity, exposure to criminogenic settings, their convergence, and finally, change over time. Study I and study II investigated adolescents’ time use and connections to rule-breaking. The former examined how adolescents spend time in unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers, during which hours of the day, in which neighbourhoods, and what level of collective efficacy the neighbourhoods have. Study II focused on adolescents’ routine activities and how they differentially place adolescents in unstructured socialising. Furthermore, it tested whether adolescents with higher crime propensity run a higher probability of reporting a rule-breaking act during unstructured socialising irrespective of their routine activities. Study III extended the situational analysis by investigating how adolescents form rule-breaking intentions in randomised scenarios depending on their morality, self-control, and the setting characteristics (varying in level of motivation and deterrence). Study IV applied a developmental perspective to key theoretical constructs derived from the DEA model, focusing on how morality, peer delinquency, and unstructured socialising change, and how the change in each is related to change in the others. Together, the studies found that adolescents with different levels of crime propensity are differently exposed to criminogenic settings but that such exposure simultaneously increases the probability of rule-breaking more for adolescents with higher crime propensity. In sum, the studies have bridged the person–place division in different ways by being rooted in a mechanistic account of rule-breaking, which is proposed as a way forward for criminology as a discipline.
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| 4. |
- Engström, Alexander
(författare)
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Everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Drawing on lifestyle-routine activity theory, this dissertation explores associations between everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults. It also examines the operationalisation of the concepts of lifestyle and routine activities, and explores the use of experience methods, via a smartphone application named STUNDA, to collect data about everyday life. Of the four studies conducted, Study I shows that different specific lifestyle measures are of varying relevance for victims, offenders, and victim-offenders, which indicates that no single universal lifestyle feature is of relevance for all outcomes studied. The findings from Study II reveal that spending time with friends in the city-centre is associated with lower levels of fear of crime across months, days, and moments. However, other associations between everyday life variables and fear of crime are inconsistent across these reference periods. Study III, a systematic review of the literature, shows that measures of lifestyle and routine activities differ in the frequency with which they are used in studies on interpersonal victimisation and offending. Illegal activities are often used as lifestyle/routine activity measures in studies on victimisation while unstructured and peer-oriented activities dominate in studies on offending. However, the measures used in the included studies are diverse, which indicates that researchers use a wide range of activities that are intended to measure lifestyle/routine activities. The final paper, Study IV, explores fear of crime in relation to moments of everyday life and finds that specific features of settings, such as being in semi-public and public spaces and on public transport, increase the odds for experiencing fear of crime.The overall conclusions of the studies point to methodological and theoretical directions for future research. First, research in the field of lifestyle-routine activity theory needs to consider specific and potentially different activities when examining victimisation, offending, and the overlap between these two outcomes. Further, fear of crime research must consider different reference periods, such as months, days and moments, since fear may not only be defined as a more stable trait-like phenomenon but also as a momentary and transitory experience in everyday life. The types of measures used to represent everyday life also require consideration, particularly in terms of the inclusion of lifestyle/routine activity measures that are actually related to criminogenic exposure. For theory more specifically, the implications of the findings point to an overall confirmation of the view that exposure to various environmental circumstances is associated with crime and fear of crime. However, across all of the studies conducted, the findings point to potential weaknesses of the theory. In particular, the lack of an elaborated perspective on individual traits and characteristics limits the explanatory scope of lifestyle-routine activity theory. For instance, people with similar lifestyles still vary in terms of their victimisation, offending, and fear of crime, which necessitates the inclusion of additional individual-level factors that could explain these variations. Future research must thus either modify lifestyle-routine activity theory or open up for other theoretical perspectives that provide a more holistic approach to understanding the role of both environ-mental and individual factors when studying everyday life, crime, and fear of crime.
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| 5. |
- Kronkvist, Karl, 1987-
(författare)
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Locating place, crime and the fear of crime : methodological and theoretical considerations
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Much previous research on the fear of crime has focused on why some individuals, with certain characteristics, experience more or less fear of crime than others. However, there is also a growing body of research examining the role that the neighbourhood context in which individuals reside plays in shaping such feelings and perceptions. At the same time, less research has been directed at understanding why certain small-scale micro-places evoke feelings of unsafety and fear of crime.The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to improving the current state ofthe research focused on place, the fear of crime, and related methodological issues. The dissertation includes four original empirical research papers. Study I is based on a case study evaluating the impact of camera surveillance and examines what role the operationalization of place may play for the results and interpretation of a given study.The findings show that different operationalizations may indeed produce different results, and that the choice of operationalization must be carefully considered in the context of study design. Study II uses responses to an open-ended survey question from three waves of the Malmö Community Survey (2012, 2015, 2018) to chart the spatial concentration and temporal stability of unsafe locations.The findings show that locations perceived as unsafe by city inhabitants are concentrated to a very small proportion of the urban space, and that there is a temporal stability in unsafe locations over time. Study III further explores unsafe locations by examining the spatial risk factors associated with these unsafe locations and the role played by neighbourhood collective efficacy and disorder. The results show that a number of spatial risk factors are correlated with the outcome, suggesting that the physical environment has a role to play in shaping people’s perceptions of unsafety at a given location. The findings also show that there are major between neighbourhood variations in unsafe locations, but that neighbourhood collective efficacy and disorder play only a limited role in the explanation of this variance. The final paper, Study IV, is a methodological study focused on the feasibility of using an alternative approach to studying fear of crime, as a momentary event, and uses an experience research framework implemented using a smart phone application (STUNDA). The general conclusion is that it is feasible to conduct research on the fear of crime using a smartphone application, but that emerging methods may also involve new methodological issues and challenges.The four studies have both methodological and theoretical implications, suggesting that the way place is defined and operationalized may have important impacts on the results and interpretations of research studies. In addition, the findings suggest that there is more to be learned about the fear of crime as a context-specific experience that is dependent on the immediate environment, and that alternative methodological approaches focused on surveying momentary experiences of fear of crime using smartphone applications seem to be feasible. A place-based approach to the fear of crime, supported by alternative measures and methods, may also be important in developing a broader understanding of how perceptions of fear of crime and unsafety are shaped. Such an understanding may in turn assist policymakers and practitioners to design knowledge-based interventions to reduce fear of crime and feelings of unsafety.
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| 6. |
- Magnusson, Mia-Maria
(författare)
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Open drug scenes and the merging of policing practice and research : a pracademic approach
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Policing research has had an upswing as the evidence-based policing movement has grown stronger and entered police practises worldwide. Within the evidence-based policing (EBP) approach, practically and academically skilled individuals, pracademics, have attracted attention as facilitating the merging of policing practice and research.Using principles from EBP, and with a special focus on translating between policing practice, policy and research, this thesis aims to explore the characteristics of illicit drug markets with a place-based focus and to link this to the enhancement of EBP in Sweden. The theoretical base of the thesis is drawn from disorganization theory, routine activity theory and situational action theory, and these theories are combined with empirical studies from the research field of drug markets.Drug markets are defined as open drug scenes (ODSs) in this pracademic thesis, which includes two empirical studies of patterns that characterize ODSs, one randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a law enforcement tactic at an ODS, and one case study of the impact of the pracademic research approach. The findings show that there are almost 50 ODSs in Stockholm County, which are characterized by patterns of crime concentration, a gun violence overlap, and associations with perceptions of unsafety. Three types of ODSs were identified, providing a basis for the tailoring of future interventions based on area characteristics, ODS stability, levels of violence, and gang activity. Micro places associated with ODSs and gun violence were found to be characterized by harsh social conditions and high levels of crime. A predictive index was created to forecast micro places at which gun violence may occur, and the prediction was enhanced when ODSs were included as predictive locations. The RCT, which was completed at a well-known ODS in the inner city of Stockholm, showed a slight but non-significant effect of the police conducting motivational talks with offenders, which gave rise to questions regarding the method’s effectiveness. The case study of the RCT process found frustration in police departments to be a possible door-opener for research. Ease of implementation was associated with the research having credibility among police officers, which was achieved by including the needs of practice in research questions and through the role played by the pracademic researcher.This thesis argues for making use of pracademics to bridge the research-practice gap, a focus on ODSs, and the testing and tracking of methods such as hot spots policing, with an emphasis on properly implemented evidence-based methods and on the goals of enforcement strategies as a means of improving the effectiveness of drug-market policing.
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| 7. |
- Nilsson, Eva-Lotta, et al.
(författare)
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Adolescents ' Perceptions, Neighbourhood Characteristics and Parental Monitoring -Are they Related, and Do they Interact in the Explanation of Adolescent Offending?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Child Indicators Research. - : Springer. - 1874-897X .- 1874-8988. ; 14, s. 1075-1087
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Children are nested in families, and families are nested within communities (e.g. neighbourhoods). This implies that the behaviour of both children and their parents is influenced by external and contextual factors. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between parental monitoring and neighbourhood disorder and collective efficacy from the perspective of the adolescent and to investigate how perceived monitoring and neighbourhood characteristics were related to and interact in predicting adolescent offending. The characteristics of the adolescent's neighbourhoods were assessed using two different data sources: adolescents' own perceptions and an independent, aggregated measure from a community survey. The analyses showed that the adolescents' perceptions of neighbourhood level of disorder and collective efficacy were associated with both adolescent-perceived parental monitoring and adolescent offending, while the corresponding measures from the community survey were not. As regards the prediction of offending, adolescent-perceived parental monitoring is the most important predictor. Neither collective efficacy nor disorder appear to interact with parental monitoring in explaining adolescent offending. Future research would contribute to the field by examining the effect and interaction between the study variables in a sample with younger adolescents as well as by including parents' perceptions. As to practical implications, our results indicate that families living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may benefit from targeted support aimed at handling negative neighbourhood influences.
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| 8. |
- Petersson, Joakim
(författare)
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Identifying risk for recidivism among partner violent men reported to the Swedish police
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global public health issue, where every third woman has experienced such violence. Moreover, IPV recidivism rates are generally high. These figures indicate that the police need a better understanding of the risk factors related to those perpetrators who pose the highest risk of recidivating in IPV. To this end, research has found that IPV perpetrators who are violent towards their partner as well as others (referred to as the antisocial subtype) display more risk factors for IPV than those perpetrators who are violent only against their partner (referred to as the family-only subtype). However, there are still uncertainties whether these two subtypes differ in terms of characteristics related to recidivism (i.e., risk profile) and actual recidivism. Thus, this thesis aimed to examine differences in risk profiles and recidivism rates between the antisocial perpetrators and the family-only perpetrators. This thesis was based on a systematic literature review and three empirical studies. The empirical studies were based on data collected from the Swedish police and consisted of IPV risk assessments. The risk assessments were performed by the police using the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER). These empirical studies relied on a sample of 657 male perpetrators who had been reported to the police and subjected to a violence risk assessment for allegedly perpetrating IPV against a female partner. The results demonstrated that categorizing partner violent men as either antisocial or family-only can help identify the perpetrators most at risk to recidivate in IPV. As such, the antisocial perpetrators displayed a greater diversity as well as degree of risk factors for IPV, and were more likely to recidivate in IPV, despite legal interventions from the police. In contrast, the family-only perpetrators presented with fewer risk factors, were characterized as socially well-adjusted outside of the relationship, and less likely to recidivate in IPV. However, several family-only perpetrators recidivated in IPV, meaning that such perpetrators should not routinely be dismissed as low-risk perpetrators. In conclusion, the results of this thesis can be used to improve the ability of those assigned to assess risk for future IPV to identify those perpetrators most at risk to recidivate. In turn, this could enable a more informed and adequate response aiming to prevent, or at best reduce, this risk.
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