Abstract The aim of this study is to illustrate how people with drug abuse problems are being depicted in drug courts, by examining the statements of the social welfare board and the individual, and the drug courts evaluation and judgement. These statements are being examined from power theories and a social constructionist perspective. Furthermore, the study aims to examine how these statements relate to each other. The study has a qualitative approach based on a discourse analytical method with following analytical tools; modality, processes, terminology, passive sense and nominalization. Based on the social constructionist perspective, the language in the verdicts is considered as both constructed and constructing. The empirical data consists of two verdicts concerning compulsory drug treatment, acquired from a drug court located in a medium-sized city in Sweden. In conclusion, the parties' statements may include varying degrees of truth and credibility, depending on structure and word choices. Further, different groups, in this case the social welfare board, the drug court (lawyers) and doctors, throughout the study is given the role of so-called privileged speakers with a special interpretative prerogative, whose expertise and opinions are often a kind of unchallenged knowledge. It is also evident how there are power differences even between these groups. I the two analyzed cases, the results show that different parties have the primary interpretative prerogative. Common to both cases is that the person with drug abuse problems are attributed to the least power, credibility and degree of truth, and thus end up at the bottom of this chain. A key finding in the study is that people with drug abuse problems are constructed in different ways in the verdicts, depending on the choice of words, sentence structure and current discourse. The language in the verdicts becomes a power tool that create, recreate and maintain beliefs about the abuser. Compulsory treatment, discourse analysis, social constructionism, power, drug abuser
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-53604 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Nilsson, Sandra, Åström, Malin |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Institutionen för juridik, psykologi och socialt arbete, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för juridik, psykologi och 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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