As organized criminal groups continue to produce an increasingly devastating effect on Swedish society, a more extensive amount of public policy and research is aimed at tackling this growing issue. However, little of the research is focused on the role of women in organized crime. The research that does exist shows rather inconclusive results regarding the roles of women. Therefore, the current essay aims to investigate, using a feminist framework, what role women play in organized criminal acts and within organized criminal groups. This study uses the method of systematic content analysis and the material consists of court judgements and preliminary investigation reports related to organized crime, in which encrypted chats have been utilized as evidence. This material provides a unique resource to be able to study the demographic variables of the women involved in organized crime as well as investigate their specific roles within the organized criminal groups by looking at variables such as their relationship to other actors, criminal involvement and contacts within the network. The results show that the women involved in organized crime were mainly involved in narcotics, financial and weapons crimes, and the most common role was that of a passive role in the form of possession of narcotics, cash or weapons. Some women had romantic or familial relationships with other offenders and most women existed on the periphery of the network with no organizational or leadership roles, which largely reflects what would be expected of female roles in feminist theory. This information can be used to gain a better understanding of women in organized crime and inform policy and rehabilitation efforts. The knowledge gained from this study could be further developed by conducting comparisons between male and female offenders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-69038 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Strömberg Rask, Tove |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle (HS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| 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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