Restorative justice (RJ) is an emerging concept of justice in the American penal system that seeks equality for all stakeholders involved. While RJ is vastly under researched--especially concerning RJ and violent offenses--current studies have only focused on determining victims' motivations for participating in RJ. Determining and evaluating offender motivations for participating in RJ remains unexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore the possible motivations of criminal offenders and their willingness to participate in RJ. The social construction framework and the narrative policy framework were employed to understand the social context. A mixed-method approach was used that began with a semistructured interview of 12 ex-offenders and concluded with all the participants completing a brief questionnaire capturing their demographical information. Participants were previously convicted criminal offenders (i.e., 7 nonviolent and 5 violent) who were no longer under the authority of the judiciary system. The semistructured interviews were analyzed qualitatively and identified six motivations: (a) concern for their reputation, (b) understanding the impact of their crime, (c) explanation of actions, (d) making the victim whole, (e) apologizing to the victim, and (f) apathy towards the victim. MANOVA analysis revealed no significance difference between the groups, except with Motive 3 (explanation of actions) and whether the participant had siblings. However, observed power for this analysis varied at low intervals where only 12 participants were involved. Regardless, the results of this study could have a significant impact on positive social change in RJ because the data informs practitioners how to facilitate RJ interventions better, bringing about efficacy with offenders.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate the role of teachers of religious education in the proactive work against violent extremism and radicalization. Furthermore, the ambition is to raise awareness of how these five teachers of religious education in the Swedish upper secondary schools and primary schools in the subject of religious studies work with and implement the school's democratic mission, and to find structures to teach about radicalization, fundamentalism, pro-violence extremism and terrorism. To obtain a result, five semi-structured interviews with active religious education teachers in the upper secondary schools and the primary schools were conducted.To show the extent to which the school's democratic mission in the proactive work against radicalization and violent extremism is carried out, the collected empirical material has been analyzed based on Paulo Freire's awareness-raising pedagogy as a theoretical framework which indicates whether the interviewed teachers of religious education work according to what Freire calls the bank view or the liberating teaching. The study shows that all interviewed teachers work according to both these models. The teachers believe that it is inevitable to ignore the teaching of facts but prefer the liberating teaching. This is because all interviewed teachers believe that through dialogues and discussions, a critical thinking is created in the students. Furthermore, it appears that all teachers find it essential to create a good and open classroom climate where there is mutual acceptance of dissent. Thus, a long-term effort to create students as source-critical thinkers is fundamental.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this study, narrative analysis, informed by the perspective of standpoint feminism, is applied to movies featuring female protagonists throughout the past five decades of the “rape and revenge” genre of filmmaking to understand the extent to which probability and fidelity function in these five films to create empathy for the victims of sexual violence. Narrative criticism is used to assess motives behind stories told in media texts, while standpoint feminism illuminates epistemological implications to cultivate intersectional viewpoints. This study provides a narrative analysis through standpoint feminism of five films that each consider female portrayals of violence as a central part of its plot. Each film represents their respective time frames over the past five decades, falls under the criteria of what constitutes a “rape and revenge” film, have been viewed overall by mainstream audiences as films that are relatively well known, and portrays women as protagonists in the plot lines. Using the theoretical insights of narrative criticism, this study investigates the common themes observed in the films that fit these specific criteria to illuminate violent female portrayals in film and identify the extent to which probability and fidelity function in these five films to create empathy for the victims of sexual violence. Standpoint feminism provides the framework to reveal the broader cultural implications of violent rhetoric in gendered media portrayals of films from the past five decades featuring female protagonists.

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I denna kvantitativa studie så granskas relationen mellan rörligheten och våldsbrottsligheten på Hötorget, som är ett torg beläget i det centrala Stockholm. Genom att utföra univariata och bivariata analyser på sekundärdata från polisen och Storstockholms lokaltrafik, så undersöktes det under vilka tidpunkter på dygnet som det rör sig flest människor i området och det begås flest brott. Resultatet av dessa analyser var att det fanns ett tydligt samband mellan de två variablerna samt att vid variationer i en variabel så noterades variationer i den andra. När det rör sig färre människor i området så inträffar det fler våldsbrott och detta mönstret har noterats gälla både under vardagar och helger. / In this quantitative study, the relationship between the level of mobility and the amount of violent crimes in Hötorget is studied. Through univariate and bivariate analyses of secondary data, the times in which the crimes were committed along with the amount of people moving in the area were studied. It was revealed that there was indeed a correlation between the two variables and that changes in one variable also led to changes in the other. Lastly, the results showed that the amount of violent crimes reached its peak when there were few people moving in the neighborhood and this occurred both during the weekdays and the weekend.

Recent years’ terrorist attacks in Europe and the flow of foreign fighters joining the terrorist organisation Daesh, has made the understanding of radicalisation evermore crucial. This thesis investigates if push and pull factors leading into violent Islamic extremism differentiate between men and women. Furthermore, it assesses how preventive measures from The United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark targets push and pull factors and if these are sensitive to sex. To fulfil this objective an exploratory thematic analysis was used to synthesise secondary qualitative research surrounding push and pull factors. The push and pull factor analysis revealed three trends: there were limited variation in the overall categories describing the push and pull factors present for men and women; what caused push and pull factors to manifest differed according to sex; and, there were differences in how much men and women were affected by these factors. The assessment of prevention measures showed that none of the measures explicitly mentioned push and pull factors, yet they all had the potential of targeting these. Sex was included in some aspects of the measures, but was not a consideration in relation to the targeting of push and pull factors. The thesis ends with a discussion of what implications the found results have for practice and offers suggestions to how prevention measures can be improved.

This study investigates how the medier portray male and female offenders who committed deadly violence. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the medier portray male and female violence offenders’ characteristics differently or not and to explain why these differences are in that case. Furthermore, if there are any differences in how medier portray the violence offenders’ motives. The method used to gather the data was a qualitative document study where different sound and picture mediers where used, and the medier´s used consists of Swedish documentaries and podcasts about different Swedish crimes. The theoretical framework that has been used as a help to analyze the empirical material consist of West and Zimmerman’s theory doing gender, Becker´s labeling theory and lastly Goffman’s theory about stigma. As a compliment to the theoretical framework several earlier studies about male and female offenders have been used to analyze the material as well. The result from the study shows that there is in fact a difference in how medier portray the genders and the motives, where the most frequent cause of the portrayal was due to gender norms. In summary, this study illustrates that Swedish medier are entertaining the gender norms formed by society.

Psychopathy is a frequently reported personality trait among violent offenders, and psychopaths have a higher rate of recidivism than inmates without psychopathic features. This systematic review aimed to investigate whether structural brain differences, measured with magnetic resonance imaging, are observed in violent offenders with psychopathy compared to violent offenders without psychopathy or healthy non-violent controls. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search utilised the academic databases Web of Science and Medline EBSCO and included original peer-reviewed articles written in English and published between 2013 and 2023. Seven articles fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected for the review. The findings indicated that there are structural differences between violent psychopaths compared to non-violent psychopaths and healthy controls, such as reduced grey matter volume in the prefrontal cortical areas, posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus, and striatal and limbic regions. Further, the degree of structural brain differences in psychopaths correlated with the degree of psychopathic traits. The structural differences found in the brains of violent psychopaths can provide insight into the neurobiological basis and neural mechanisms of psychopathy and elucidate how changes in brain morphology relate to antisocial behaviour and psychopathic personality traits. In addition, the evidence of structural abnormalities in the brain of psychopaths may help develop targeted treatments that could reduce the risk of psychopathic individuals turning to crime and violence or committing repeated violent crimes.