The objective of this thesis was to research and gain knowledge about people involved in organized crime in Sweden. By conducting interviews we were able to analyze what factors played a role in an individual's choice to become a member of a criminal gang, as well as to gain an overall picture of these people. The qualitative research was carried out in three different cities in Sweden. Three people, aged between 30 and 60, who are currently members of a gang, were interviewed. In these interviews they shared their life stories in terms of childhood, youth, gang involvement as well as their hopes for the future. The results were then further analyzed to explore any similarities and differences among the participating individuals. Furthermore, these results were then compared with previous research on the topic, as well as different theories. We were able to conclude several common trends in the experiences of the interviewed people despite all of them being unique. Among other findings, we could see that theories regarding risk factors for criminal development were mostly coherent with that of the interviewees. Risk factors can be segregated into the individual level, family level, peer level, school level and community level. Research on risk factors were shown to match the interviewees' life stories quite well. Some of the common factors were that two of the people who were interviewed came from broken family relationships, all three described themselves as drawn to peer groups seeking excitement, and all three said that their time at school was characterized by violence. All the people interviewed are active members of a gang because it "suited their needs. They all noted, however, that a disadvantage of this lifestyle is that it comes with a lot of stress, especially the fight against the judiciary. It was clear to all three people that they find it difficult to obey the law and that it would be difficult to leave the criminal underworld completely. This means that chronic criminality, as well as other behavior, is the result of habits that are fundamentally difficult to break.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-86385 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Andersson, Niklas, Omodho, Daisy |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för socialt arbete, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för socialt arbete |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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