| 1. |
- Jerre, Kristina, 1974-
(author)
-
The Public's Sense of Justice in Sweden - a Smorgasbord of Opinions
- 2013
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The public’s views on what constitute appropriate reactions to crime, have come to assume an increasingly central position in the crime policy rhetoric of western countries. In Sweden this manifests itself in recurrent referrals to the public’s sense of justice. Any clear definitions of what the public’s sense of justice is, how it is expressed and how it can be read are however absent from these referrals.In this thesis the use of referrals to the public’s sense of justice as a legitimizing ground for penal legislation is problematized from an empirical perspective. Paper I points out the substantial variation found in the public’s view on what constitutes appropriate sentences. According to Paper II society’s reactions to crime are expected to fulfill different, and often contradictory, objectives simultaneously. Paper III also points to the assumption that views on what constitutes appropriate sentences are based on deliberations where different dimensions of society’s reaction are weighed against each other.The public’s sense of justice, thus, consists of diverse, variable and complex opinions. Referrals to it as a legitimizing ground for changes in penal legislation becomes a matter of choice between whose and which opinion it is that should be emphasized. For this choice to be perceived as legitimate it should not be made without at the same time motivating it.If crime policy is to be both knowledge-based and fitted to the public’s sense of justice the public must be given the opportunity to develop an informed and well-grounded sense of justice. Especially since, compared to other political matters, crime policy and its consequences are something that only a small portion of the public comes into direct contact with. The suggestion is that the public criminal policy debate is framed so that it matches the complexity of the public’s sense of justice itself.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ljungwald, Carina, 1975-
(author)
-
The Emergence of the Crime Victim in the Swedish Social Services Act
- 2011
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study sought to explain how crime victims emerged as a target group in the Swedish Social Services Act in 2001. The findings, derived from legislative documents, a literature review, and focus group interviews with social workers, showed that the 2001 provisions both duplicated and undermined pre-existing provisions of the Social Services Act. The explicit aim of the reform was to improve services to crime victims. The provisions did not, however, change the legal responsibility of the social services, nor did they strengthen the social rights of crime victims. The social services already assumed responsibility for crime victims according to other provisions of the act. To some degree, the reform can be explained symbolically. Support for crime victims was a complicated issue for the social democratic government. The economic crisis of the early 1990s ruled out reforms that might bring high increased costs. Yet expanding crime victims’ rights at the expense of the offender (e.g. toughening penal law and promoting victim impact statements) was not in line with social democratic ideology. By enacting the 2001 provisions, the government showed its commitment to providing support to crime victims. At the same time, the provisions did not increase costs or strengthen crime victims’ rights. In this way, the provisions solved a political dilemma for the government. Incorporating the 2001 provisions in the Social Services Act may seem to have been a modest reform. Symbolic politics, however, are not empty; rather, they reflect attitudes and beliefs. This study proposed that the reform revealed the state’s increasing concern with violence against women and individual responsibility. Furthermore, the provisions may have constituted a normative reorientation of the Social Services Act, in which individual responsibility increasingly replaced solidarity, the holistic view, and a right to assistance according to need.
|
|
| 3. |
- Larsson, Daniel, 1976-
(author)
-
Exposure to crime as a consequence of poverty : five investigations about relative deprivation, poverty and exposure to crime
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis contains five studies that in different ways investigate poverty and the relation between poverty and exposure to crime. The basis of the thesis has been the question of how poverty is related to other welfare problems such as unemployment and health problems, focusing on exposure to crime and fear of crime. The thesis also has a comparative element. In one article, the conditions in Britain, Finland and Sweden are compared, and two articles compare conditions in Britain and Sweden.Poverty has been measured as relative deprivation. This is done by measuring consumption of socially perceived necessities, both goods and activities. For poverty to be at hand, not consuming some of the goods or not engaging in some of the activities must be a consequence of lack of economic resources, not of personal preference. The relation between poverty and exposure to crime has been understood from an interactionist perspective, where the possible interaction between and intersection of potential offender and potential victim constitute the determinant factor for the risk of being exposed to crime. In this perspective, the poor are more exposed because their situation of being poor places them in situations where the risks of being exposed are high. Fear of crime stems from different sources. The significance of earlier victimization, the characteristics of the geographical unit where one lives and vulnerability in the event of actual exposure have been investigated.It was found that poverty measured as relative deprivation is related to other welfare problems, primarily other economic problems, unemployment, health impairments, anxiety, sleeping problems and headaches. But it was also found that poverty is related to exposure to crime and fear of crime. Furthermore, poverty based on an income measure did not correlate especially well with other welfare problems. It was also found that the extent of poverty measured as relative deprivation is equal in Britain and Sweden, while it is more extensive in Finland. This result contradicts earlier studies based on income measurements of poverty, which show that poverty is about equally common in Sweden and Finland and more extensive in Britain. It was found that the reason why relative deprivation is more extensive in Finland is that the level of unemployment is higher there and that the unemployed are worse off in Finland than in Britain and Sweden.Regarding the relation between poverty and exposure to property crime, it was found that the poor are more exposed than are the non-poor with regard to the property crime that violates personal integrity most: property crime related to the residence. Exposure to crime was found to be more of a poverty problem in Sweden than in Britain. Because crime rates are about equal in Britain and Sweden, the result indicates that the risk of being exposed to crime in Britain is more equally distributed across the population. Furthermore, it was found that fear of crime in Sweden is related to poverty, while fear of crime in Britain is more related to vulnerability in general, particularly vulnerability on the labour market. One reason for this may be that fear of crime is more common in Britain than in Sweden. Fear of crime may be such a general problem in Britain that the poor cannot be differentiated from the non-poor.
|
|
| 4. |
- Wahlgren, Paula, 1976-
(author)
-
De laglydiga : Om skolans brottsförebyggande fostran
- 2014
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Politicians and scholars often frame schooling as one of society’s most important crime preventive measures. The object of the study is to examine and problematize the hopes and ambitions that have evolved around what the study conceptualizes as the crime preventive educational task of public schooling and its historical trajectory as articulated in government publications. Drawing on governmentality theory, the study focuses on the liberal conception of the autonomous and self-regulating subject, and how the liberal mode of government works through the governing of freedom. The study identifies three discourses on crime preventive education: The emancipatory (1970s onwards), the deterrence (late 1980s onwards) and the safety/security discourse (21st century). The discursive shifts identified are further analysed in respect to how i) the explanation of crime, and the relationship between the deviant and the law-abiding subject, ii) control and iii) freedom and responsibility, are conceptualized over time. The conceptualization of criminal behaviour goes from being caused by social deprivation, becoming instead a calculated rational act. Subsequently, the deviant is altered from a person in need of reintegration to a deterrent example and a risk. The problematization of control has a trajectory from being a matter of social control and integration, ending instead as a matter of risk control and prudentialism. The conceptualization of the kind of freedom and responsibility the crime preventive education should foster is also reframed, from a strategy to counter a lack of democracy and influence, to a way of making prudent citizens. In this, the notion of a collective responsibility has been superseded by a belief in individual responsibility. The key problematization vindicating the process has gone from how to integrate youths into a society in constant flux, to how to restore control if lost and how to protect a pre-given social order.
|
|
| 5. |
- Heber, Anita
(author)
-
Var rädd om dig! : Rädsla för brott enligt forskning, intervjupersoner och dagspress
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The object of this project is to investigate people’s fear of crime. By means of three studies, the dissertation illustrates how the fear of crime is understood in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic research, by a group of interview subjects and also how this fear is depicted in Stockholm’s daily press. In the research, fear of crime is viewed as an individual problem that is not linked to exposure to crime. Instead the fear is explained by reference to individual factors, situational factors and societal conditions. The views described in the research have changed over time, with inter alia an increasing number of groups being described as experiencing fear. The interview study is based on 28 in-depth interviews with persons living in different areas of Stockholm. In summary, the interview subjects are not afraid of crime, and they say they do not think about crime in the course of their daily lives. They may perceive fear in certain situations, in specific locations and when faced with unknown people. These situations are characterised by a lack of control, which tends to be linked to the fear of crime. This fear also appears clearly to be influenced by the media. In the press, the fear of crime is not only depicted in relation to public places, but also in the home and at the workplace. The absence of police is described as one of the reasons for this fear. It is also acceptable for men to express a fear of crime in the newspaper articles. The descriptions expressed in the interviews and in the press reflect some of the theories propounded on the risk society. Risk appears to be perceived as separate from fear. A reduction in crime would therefore be likely to lead to a reduction in the risk of exposure to crime, but not always in the fear of crime. This fear may instead probably be reduced by measures that increase people’s sense of control.
|
|
| 6. |
- Lilja, My, 1974-
(author)
-
Drug Discourses in Contemporary Russia : A Study of the National Press, NGOs and the Government
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In Western Europe and the United States drugs have, since the 1960s, been one of the most discussed social problems. However, in the Soviet Union it was not until perestroika in the mid-1980s that a public debate on this issue began. Since then the drug problem has gone from being regarded as a non-existent phenomenon to being seen as one of the country’s most serious problems and an issue of top-priority for the Russian government. The aim of this thesis is to analyse discourses on drugs among the press, NGOs and the government in contemporary Russia. The analysis is based on a social constructionist and a discourse analytical perspective. The empirical part of the thesis consists of an investigation of three different versions or constructions of the problem. These different versions are analysed by way of three different case studies which constitute the empirical part of the thesis. The first study examines representations of drugs in the Russian national press based on an analysis of newspaper articles. The aim of the second study is to analyse how representatives of thirteen non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Moscow and St Petersburg construct the drug problem. The material for this study consists of semi-structured interviews with these representatives. The focus in the third study is on an analysis of how the Russian government and its representatives construct the drug issue. The materials used in this study are government publications, interviews with and speeches by representatives of the government. The findings from these case studies reveal that the Russian press and government construct the drug issue in a similar way with drugs viewed as a foreign problem being the main focus for the debate. By contrast, the NGO representatives have a rather different view of the drug problem. For them a harm reduction discourse is one of the most central discourses. The evidence also shows that among these actors the drug problem is constructed in a variety of different discourses which, considered together, create a complex picture of the problem.
|
|
| 7. |
- Pettersson, Lotta, 1972-
(author)
-
Frihet under kontroll : Om kontroll i åkerinäringen
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation, based on two studies, examines the significance of formal control, i.e. the actors and agencies whose formal task involves the use of a range of measures to exercise control within the road haulage industry. First and foremost it examines the question of why formal control has low legitimacy among the groups of individuals who work in and around the haulage sector from the point of view of an occupational perspective. The dissertation proposes five possible interpretations in answer to the question of why formal control is ascribed low legitimacy. First, as an obstacle in a practical reality. This was a recurrent view, and reflects a perception that the haulage industry is subject to a particularly high level of governmental measures and interventions. Second, as impositions on a socially and economically disadvantaged group. Long working days, poor finances and difficult conditions were all a part of life at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, and probably also led to a great deal of frustration among those working in the industry. Third, as a threat to an occupational ideal. It emerged in the analysis of the data that the hauliers’ and drivers’ occupational identity, together with an occupational ideal of how a haulier and driver should be, were in part constructed in relation to the formal control of the haulage industry. The fourth perspective is related to an occupational ideal and focuses on collisions between masculine hegemonies. The male dominance in both data sets raised the issue of the significance of the relationship between certain occupational hegemonies and other types of hegemony. And finally, the low legitimacy is discussed in relation to its criminogenic effects. Focus in this discussion is on the question of whether formal control creates a propensity to commit crime, something which the interview subjects’ answers indicates may be the case. In summary, the low legitimacy of formal control can be linked to the foundations on which this control rests, the way it is formulated, and its consequences. On one level, the issue is one of formal control producing a risk for negative consequences for those working in the industry when it is put into action in the everyday occupational life of the haulage industry. The danger with this might be that the effect of the regulations is lessened and they lead to an increase in the distance between the “state” and the “individual”. Perceptions of distance and a lack of understanding between powerful actors and those active in the industry may also involve a risk of producing criminogenic forces.
|
|
| 8. |
- Rönneling, Anita, 1965-
(author)
-
Berättelser från en välfärdsstat : Om förståelse av marginalisering
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation is based on two research projects, both of which are linked to concepts such as exclusion, marginalisation and other related themes. CASE, the project that forms the principal basis for the dissertation, is a comparative study of “social exclusion” in seven European countries whose objective has been to illuminate those situations in people’s lives that involve difficulties and that may or may not have been resolved satisfactorily. The other project, MAX, is a Swedish study of drug abuse and marginalisation whose objective has inter alia been to illustrate the ways in which drug users in different life-situations perceive and interpret these situations. Using material from these two projects, the dissertation’s overall objective involves improving our understanding of marginalisation by adding to the existing knowledge of living conditions among the more impoverished and vulnerable members of the welfare society, with the focus being directed at their experiences of difficulties, opportunities and resources in relation to areas such as work and their financial situation. This is done in the context of two principal themes which relate to different research questions, but which are nonetheless linked together through their association with themes such as those of living conditions, marginalisation and the welfare state. The dissertation’s first theme, “Marginalisation and the welfare state”, builds exclusively on material from the CASE project and illuminates the situations immigrants in Sweden may face as they look for work. Despite the political rhetoric about inclusion and equality, they are faced with a labour market where a diffuse demand for “Swedishness” appears to play a central role. Several interview subjects spoke of how they felt they had been consigned to unqualified work, unemployment and benefit dependency. As a whole this section of the dissertation bears witness to a striking discrepancy between the rhetoric of integration policy on equality of conditions and opportunity and a social praxis that places various obstacles in immigrants’ paths and that consistently confronts them with a sense of being “un-Swedish”. The work presented here also seeks to improve our theoretical understanding of marginalisation, and the analysis makes use of concepts and ideas from among others Bauman and Bourdieu. The second theme, “With the welfare state as a reference point”, also builds on narratives from CASE, but also on interviews from the MAX study, and illuminates how the Swedish welfare state is reflected in interviews with low-income and vulnerable individuals. Amongst other things, the empirical examples illustrate the role assigned to the welfare state, and that which it appears to play, in relation to the interview subjects’ income and daily lives, and also how the subjects in the two projects express their expectations of and disappointment over the welfare system in their narratives describing the events and difficulties they have experienced. The theoretical analysis uses ideas from amongst others Giddens in an attempt to view the interview subjects’ references to the welfare system as a manifestation of an interplay between the individual and structural planes.
|
|
