The purpose of this study has been to investigate how socialworkers describe their attitudes towards reporting childabuse to the police and if they make different decisions when they believe the violence to be honour related and how they handle these questions. The main questions are; How does socialworkers describe their and their colleagues attitudes towards reporting childabuse to the police and when do they believe they should report? Do they describe honourviolence as a specific kind of violence that should be lifted and in what way does it affect their work? The study is written from a legal sociologist perspective with a qualitative approach. Four socialworkers were interviewed and the interviews were analyzed with an anti-racist theory and with the theory about freedom of action. The conclusions is that the socialworkers mostly report childabuse to the police when the violence is physical. This means that children who describes to be subjected to psychological violence, including honourviolence, has poor legal security. Socialworkers describes honourviolence as a specific kind of violence that has to be lifted. Without knowledge they wont be able to help. They feel limited by the legislation and have invented creative solutions that focuses on the child’s best interest.

The opinion of social workers towards their work with children and young persons was studied in this essay. Even their point of view with reference to the term the child’s best interest has being considered and special focus was laid on the social workers attitudes towards media coverage and its criticism towards their work. A qualitative approach was used consisted of six interviews. The theoretical frameworks were based on the theory about freedom of action and the theory of social representations. Our result showed that almost all of the interviewees felt a relatively high freedom of action in their work within the framework of the law and other policies and that despite the difficulties this can imply, they still enjoy working with this target group. Concerning the term the child’s best interest, all of interviewees said that it is very good that it exists but that it is also difficult to define since it depends on whom one asks. Nearly all of the social workers thought that media coverage is one-sided and very negative.

Mäns våld mot kvinnor är ett allvarligt samhällsproblem och ett hot mot kvinnors mänskliga rättigheter. Kommunerna har en central roll i det våldspreventiva arbetet, men i dagsläget finns inget lagstöd för hur detta arbete bör bedrivas. För att öka kommunernas ansvar inom det brottspreventiva arbetet, relaterat till våld i nära relation har regeringen påbörjat en utredning av införandet av ett nytt lagförslag. Detta lagförslag skulle innebära att kommunerna får ett större ansvar i att arbeta mer brottsförebyggande. För att undersöka hur det preventiva arbetet avseende våld i nära relation bedrivs i de skånska kommunerna i dagsläget, har en kartläggning utförts i denna studie. Kartläggningen har gjorts genom en triangulering av kommunernas webbplatser, befintliga dokument och enkäter. Utifrån en tematisk analys av denna data framkommer det att samtliga kommuner bedriver ett våldspreventivt arbete av sekundär och tertiär karaktär. Det finns inom kommunerna insatser inriktade mot både offer och förövare, dock riktas insatserna främst till den utsatta. Insatser som oftast erbjuds till den utsatta är skyddat boende, samtalsstöd och ekonomiskt bistånd. Samtalsstöd är den insats som oftast erbjuds den som utsätter. Utifrån resultatet i denna studie kan det utläsas att kommunerna på grund av resursbrist inte har möjlighet att arbeta med primär prevention i större utsträckning, trots en önskan om detta. En lagförändring kring kommunernas ansvar i det våldspreventiva arbetet hade kunnat innebära ökade resurser och därmed ett större fokus kring primär prevention av våld i nära relation. / Men´s violence against women is a serious societal problem and a threat against the human rights of women. Municipalities play a central part in prevention work, but at the moment there is no law in Sweden that regulates how this work should be practiced. To increase the responsibilities of municipalities in the prevention work of intimate partner violence, the government commenced the introduction of a new bill. The implementation of this bill would lead to a greater responsibility for municipalities in working with crime prevention. To examine how the prevention work related to intimate partner violence is conducted in the municipalities of Scania in the current situation, a mapping was conducted in this study. The mapping was done through a triangulation of the municipalities websites, available documents and a survey. Based on a thematic analysis of this data it appears that every municipality conducts their prevention work against violence in a secondary and tertiary way. In the municipalities there are efforts targeting both the victim and the offender, although most of the efforts are developed for the person exposed of violence. The most commonly offered efforts are protected residence, aid through dialog and financial support. Aid through dialogue is the commonest offered effort to offenders. Based on the results of this study it can be understood that municipalities, because of lack of resources, do not have the ability to work with primary prevention, although there is a desire to do so. The implementation of a new bill regarding the responsibilities of municipalities in prevention work, could increase resources and thereby enable a greater focus in primary prevention against intimate partner violence.