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 In this, the notion of a collective responsibility has been superseded by a belief in individual responsibility.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.

Crime among youth is a social problem in Sweden and a much-debated topic in politics lately. The main purpose of the study is to identify and problematize the perceptions of Stefan Löfven's (2019–2021) and Ulf Kristersson's (2022) governments, which are the basis for their problem representations of youth crime in Sweden. To be able to carry out the study, we will mostly use Carol Bacchi's discourse analytical method and theory called "What's the problem represented to be?" which is abbreviated WPR. The questions we have prepared regarding the study's purpose and analysis method are as follows: How do Stefan Löfven and Ulf Kristersson governments represent the crime problem among youth? What perceptions about criminality among youth underlie the government’s problem representations? What is left unproblematic in the problem representations? The conclusions are that Stefan Löfven's government focuses a lot on rehabilitating criminal youth, the focus is thus on the underlying socio-economic causes of the problem of crime. What is left invisible in the problem representation thus shows how victims of crime are affected by the criminal acts of criminal youth. Ulf Kristersson's government sees the problem as that victims of crime are not treated fairly; therefore, criminal youth must be locked up to reduce illegal activity. What is thus made invisible is how these criminal youth are ultimately affected by this measure. With this, we concluded that both governments’ problem representations are based on many shortcomings and ignorance. This is because many important issues according to previous research, such as individual risk factors, are left unproblematic in the problem representations.

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Research has shown that criminal justice policy in Western democratic societies has become increasingly punitive (e.g. Wilson and Petersilia 2010), and that the public largely supports these policies, despite the fact that crime rates have been declining (e.g. Roberts 2003). However, few studies have attempted to explain this paradox in the context of neoliberalism, and within a Canadian context. Using the 2011 and 1997 Canadian Election Study, this project employs logistical regression and a comparative analysis to examine the extent to which neoliberal governance has produced prejudicial attitudes towards racialized “Others,” social and economic insecurity, and attitudes that individualize causes of poverty, and the extent to which these factors predict support for punitive treatment of violent young offenders. The results of this study show that the advent of neoliberalism has precipitated racialized “othering” towards Aboriginal people, which has increased punitive attitudes, but that insecurity and individualization, in relations to punitive attitudes, was present previous to 1997. / October 2015

This thesis has analyzed the relationship between the punitive turn and the crime policies of the Green party (Miljöpartiet de Gröna) and the Sweden democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) to answer the research question; what influence the punitive turn has had on the parties policies. The choice of method has fallen on a quantitative content-analysis with a qualitative complementarity and qualitative facilitation. From an account of the punitive turn has a word-list with recording units been created, of those recording units has a computer-search been made of the two parties most recent official documents which accounts for the parties holistic politics; MP´s Partyprogramme from 2013, and SD´s Principleprogramme from 2011. The result of the qualitative complementarity shows; a greater frequency of recording units for MP than for SD. The analysis of the qualitative facilitation-result shows; a lesser direct influence of the punitive turn for MP than for SD. The result and analysis are discussed regarding whether the research question has been answered, and no such conclusion is considered to be made by the researcher, instead are the result and analysis open for interpretation of the reader.

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe attitudes to police and law enforcement funding in Sweden, and more specifically to find out if attitudes changed from the 1990s and onwards. The time interval was chosen since it was a period of societal change since Sweden was moving towards a more individualized society. The study analyses empirical data from the International Social Survey Programme, comparing surveys conducted in 1996, 2006, and 2016, to identify any differences in attitudes. The findings reveal differences in attitudes across the three time periods. Survey respondents in 2006 wanted lower funding for police and law enforcement compared to those in 1996 and 2016, whereas respondents in 2016 reported more positive attitudes toward police fundings. These trends were mostly consistent across social groups, although some groups reported larger changes in attitudes between time periods.

<p>This dissertation consists of three chapters on economic topics related to crime and early childhood. In the first chapter, I explore the effect of a criminal justice policy on crime. The second chapter examines the relationship between gender nonconformity in childhood and life outcomes. In the third chapter, I study the relationship between access to local mental health care for children and juvenile crime.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>In my first chapter, I study the causal impact of post-release supervision on recidivism and new crime. Prior to 2011, inmates who committed lower-level offenses in North Carolina were not subject to post-release supervision. The North Carolina \textit{Justice Reinvestment Act} changed policy to require nine months of post-release supervision. Leveraging a discrete policy effective date in a regression discontinuity in time model and using administrative data from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, I explore the effects of this legislative change on criminal outcomes. Evidence indicates that post-release supervision decreases property and violent crimes, but these changes do not persist beyond the supervision period. Results suggest that supervision leads to more individuals returning to prison at a faster rate due to technical, not criminal, violations; however, requiring lower-level offenders to undergo post-release supervision is a cost-effective program.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>The second chapter of this dissertation is coauthored with Torsten Santavirta and Miguel Sarzosa. We study the role of childhood gender conformity in determining gender gaps. We present a conceptual framework that uses gender norms to explain why some women make less profitable choices than comparable men. Using unique longitudinal survey and register data, we show that gender-nonconforming girls have substantially better education and labor market outcomes than gender-conforming girls. In contrast, gender-nonconforming boys perform substantially worse at school, sort into lower-paying occupations, earn less, and have a greater incidence of mental health disorders and substance abuse during adulthood than gender-conforming boys. Our analyses suggest that such divergence develops from an early age. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In my last chapter, I explore the relationship between mental health care for children and juvenile crime. Using data with information on facilities that specifically treat children, I exploit the county-level variation in the number of mental health treatment facilities for minors in a two-way fixed-effects model to explore the relationship between access to mental health care in a given year and juvenile crime the following year. I find that outpatient and inpatient mental health facilities for children have heterogeneous effects on juvenile crime.</p>

This thesis presents an analysis of crime trends and social control during the dramatic transformation of Sweden's social landscape in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, set against the background of the modernization process in the country as a whole and the city of Sundsvall and environs in particular. What assumptions about crime were evident in public debate? How did crime levels vary from region to region, and what were the changes over time? What strategies did government and local authorities try for combating crime? Did the joint efforts by government, local communities, and the voluntary sector actually solve the problems that social change was believed to have caused?When it comes to theory, the interpretative framework is based on Anthony Giddens's argument about modernity and modernization, making particular use of a few central points about what the changes meant for the structuration of society. Giddens's ideas about changes in social control are refined with Michel Foucault's and David Garland's work on the increasingly disciplinary trend seen in the exercise of the law and public control. The analysis of modernity's ramifications for the transformation of both social structures and crime alike has also benefitted from Robert Putnam's and Travis Hirschi's insights into the importance of social capital and social bonds for a well-functioning, low-crime society.The process by which Sweden was transformed from an overwhelmingly agrarian country to an urban, industrial society left its mark on crime patterns. To the contemporary mind, industrialization, migration, and urbanization were the underlying causes of the high levels of serious crime in the society. The start of the nineteenth century had seen a rise in criminality, with both petty crime and lethal violence becoming more common. At the same time, there was a heated debate about the socio-economic problems that were such a strain on the structure of society. The analysis finds that there were large differences in prosecutions in the country and between cities. The Sundsvall area was among those that saw a dramatic change in crime in the course of becoming a major industrial region. At the same time, the thesis shows that there were plenty of cities in Sweden, however rapidly they grew, that had low crime rates. However, the widespread fear of industrialization, migration, and urbanization was often unfounded. For example, both lethal violence and public order offences reached their lowest recorded levels in the interwar period. By then, new cures were sought for the social and moral ills of society. The state's sphere of influence had expanded. New social reforms, including a modified crime policy, were launched. The state became even more assertive, and the same was true of civil society. Society would attend to the moral education of a number of different groups. Moral virtues were to be instilled in the workshy, alcoholic, or criminal, in order to produce disciplined and cultured citizens. The attention of social activists, the scientific community, civil servants, and local and national politicians shifted from crime per se to the far broader issue of asociality. Modernization gave the voluntary sector a significant role in the social organization of the day, shaping new forums for interpersonal relationships and strengthening social ties. The thesis makes the case that two distinct periods, each with its specific social structures and crime patterns, can be observed; one belonging to the nineteenth century, the other to the first four decades of the twentieth century.Finally, the similarities between the history of crime in Sweden and, for example, the US or the UK are highlighted. As in Britain and North America, the early industrialization period saw weakened social bonds, and a time of greater violence and disorder ensued. After a while however, the situation stabilized, and crime rates began to drop again. When industrial societies ceased to be 'frontier communities' at the forefront of modernization, and instead became more mature communities, crime levels fell as people's commitment to their communities was renewed.