Stockholms universitet
This page in English

Felipe Estrada DörnerPrefekt

Om mig

Prefekt och professor vid Kriminologiska institutionen.

I min forskning behandlar jag centrala kriminologiska områden, som brottsutveckling, kriminalpolitik, utsatthet och oro för brott, ojämlika livschanser, segregation och ungdomsbrottslighet.

De problem jag studerat handlar om hur man ska mäta brottslighetens omfattning och utveckling. Vad är våld och hur ska den kraftiga ökningen av brottsanmälningar förklaras? Vilka metoder är tillämpbara och vilka felkällor måste undvikas när ungdomsbrott ska beskrivas? Hur ska kriminalpolitikens förändring under de senaste 40 åren förstås? Vilka grupper i samhället är mest utsatta för ofärd och vilka faktorer påverkar den ojämlika utsattheten för brott? Hur påverkar boendesegregationen människors erfarenheter av brott och hur mäter man i så fall sådana områdeseffekter? För tillfället är jag engagerad i ett stort projekt som rör hur ojämlikhet i livschanser hänger ihop med brott.

Svaren på dessa frågor är naturligtvis komplexa och de analysmetoder och teorier som krävs för att belysa dem är mångsidiga. I min forskning har jag kunnat ge vissa svar men dessa problem kräver fortsatt kunskapsutveckling och detta är något vi arbetar med på Kriminologiska institutionen på Stockholms universitet.

Undervisning

Undervisningområden: för närvarande prefekt och har inget kursansvar.

Forskning

Forskningsområden: Brottslighetens struktur och utveckling, kriminalpolitik, social exkludering, ungdomsbrottslighet, longitudinella studier.

Nuvarande forskningsprojekt

Social förändring och brott. En multikohortstudie om brottslighet över livsförloppet - Stockholms universitet

Socialtjänstens arbete med brottsprevention - förutsättningar, arbetssätt och utfall - Stockholms universitet

Den ojämlika brottsligheten

Kvinnors brottslighet som socialt problem

Jag bevakar också frågor som rör brottsutvecklingen, ungdomsbrottslighet samt våld som samhällsproblem.

Publikationer

se sammanställning av urval i pubikationsflik

Forskningsprojekt

Publikationer

I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

  • “It should be hard to be a drug abuser”: An evaluation of the criminalization of drug use in Sweden

    2024. Albin Stenström, Felipe Estrada, Henrik Tham. International journal of drug policy 133

    Artikel

    Background: Drug use was criminalized in Sweden in 1988 with aim of reducing the number of consumers and drug-related risks and harms. Imprisonment was introduced into the penalty scale in 1993 to improve the legislation's effectiveness. The criminalization has never been evaluated. Method: Goal-attainment evaluation based on a range of indicators from surveys, case-finding estimates, healthcare and cause-of-death data, and crime statistics. Comparative drug policy analysis is conducted with other Nordic countries. Results: The criminalization is not followed by a reduced or more expensive drug supply, reduced consumption levels, problematic drug use or healthcare needs, or to fewer drug-related deaths. Most of the indicators instead show the opposite. Control costs are high, and trends are no better than those of other Nordic countries, despite Sweden's more repressive drug policy. Conclusion: Criminalization emerges as an ineffective, expensive and harmful means of dealing with the drugs problem.

    Läs mer om “It should be hard to be a drug abuser”

  • Biased Enforcement Expansion? Sociodemographic Differences in Police Drug Testing for Suspected Narcotics Use 1993-2015

    2022. Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman, Anders Nilsson. British Journal of Criminology 62 (5), 1213-1232

    Artikel

    Since the 1990s, Sweden has witnessed a steady increase in the control measures focused on drug offences. These changes are results of political dynamics once pushed by centre-right parties but thereafter embraced by Social Democrats in government. The article examines the structure of police controls of drug offences and the extent to which these controls have focused on different sociodemographic groups during the period 1995-2015. The study shows that this intensified control of minor drug crimes has resulted in successively larger proportions of youths from deprived areas being forced to provide samples of body fluids. The criminalization of drug use constitutes an example of the significance of crime policy for both crime levels and the composition of the offender population.

    Läs mer om Biased Enforcement Expansion? Sociodemographic Differences in Police Drug Testing for Suspected Narcotics Use 1993-2015

  • Den svenska ungdomsbrottsligheten

    2022. .

    Bok (red)

    Ungdomsbrottslighet framstår som ett av de centrala problem­områdena i såväl kriminologisk forskning som i svensk samhällsdebatt. I den här antologin medverkar flera av landets främsta experter på ungdomsbrottslighet. Utifrån sin forskning belyser de centrala frågor kring ungdomars brottslighet. Denna femte upplaga innehåller fem helt nyskrivna kapitel som behandlar skjutningar i gängmiljöer, skolan och brottsligheten, ungas utsatthet för brott, ungdomsbrottslighet ur ett livsförloppsperspektiv samt social förändring och ungdomsbrottslighet. Övriga kapitel har genomgått omfattande uppdateringar och omarbetningar. Sammantaget ger boken utifrån skilda perspektiv och metoder en mångfacetterad kunskap om ungdomsbrottslighetens karaktär, omfattning och utveckling, dess orsaker och förklaringar samt om samhällets åtgärder och reaktioner.

    Läs mer om Den svenska ungdomsbrottsligheten

  • Criminal convictions and immigrant background 1973–2017 in Sweden – have differences increased or declined?

    2021. Olof Bäckman (et al.). Nordic Journal of Criminology 22 (2), 149-168

    Artikel

    This study investigates Swedish conviction trends by individuals’ immigrant background for the period 1973–2017. The central research question is whether relative differences in conviction levels have increased, declined or remained unchanged over recent decades. This question is examined in part using a traditional cross-sectional approach, and in part using a cohort-based approach. All results are presented by gender, and results for the cohort-based approach also by holding socioeconomic background constant. The results show that conviction levels have decreased, to a greater extent among men than among women, irrespective of immigrant background. The level of overrepresentation among those born in Sweden to foreign-born parents has increased somewhat, while the overrepresentation of those born abroad has decreased towards the end of the period examined.

    Läs mer om Criminal convictions and immigrant background 1973–2017 in Sweden – have differences increased or declined?

  • The female offender - A century of registered crime and daily press reporting on women’s crime

    2019. Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson, Tove Pettersson.

    Artikel

    This article examines how women’s crime has been reflected in crime statistics and media crime reporting. We employ a long-term historical perspective, looking at developments from the beginning of the 20th century until the present. We describe the overarching processes that underlie the decline in the gender gap in convictions for theft and violent crime, respectively, at different times during the past century. The study also use a new data set comprised of newspaper articles on women’s and men’s offending published by the Swedish press between 1905 and 2015. We compare the trend in the number of articles focused on offences committed by women and men respectively, variations in the offence types that the daily press choose to report on and the overarching explanations for crime that are discussed in the articles. The results show that levels of coverage and the types of crime that attract media attention are strikingly similar for men and women, but throughout the whole period there is a greater need for the newspapers to find reasons for women’s offending. Moreover, there has been no marked increase in the press focus on women’s crime as women have comprised an increasing proportion of those convicted of criminal offences.

    Läs mer om The female offender - A century of registered crime and daily press reporting on women’s crime

  • Youth and Crime in a Welfare State. Trends, Inequalities and Societal Response

    2019. Felipe Estrada. Policing Schools: School Violence and the Juridification of Youth, 33-51

    Kapitel

    The causes of youth crime, its levels and trends are important for social policy. The debate in Europe often present descriptions of constantly rising youth crime and demands that society should be tougher on juvenile delinquents. This chapter addresses a number of issues that should be regarded as central to all those who are interested in the life conditions of young people; how has the nature of youth crime changed? Why do some groups of young people commit more offences than others? How does a welfare society deal with juveniles who engage in offending? Sweden has more high-quality data sources than most other countries, which makes it a valuable case for discussing youth crime on the basis of different indicators. The analysis on crime statistics, questionnaire surveys and medical data does not support the view that youth crime is on the rise on the contrary. Interestingly, the declines are most marked among boys and young men. This also has a clear impact on the narrowing of the gender gap in crime.

    Läs mer om Youth and Crime in a Welfare State. Trends, Inequalities and Societal Response

  • Future Prospects, Deprivation, and Criminality – A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study

    2018. Susanne Alm, Felipe Estrada. Deviant behavior 39 (10), 1280-1293

    Artikel

    The article explores the longitudinal relationship between subjective and objective deprivation in early adolescence on the one hand, and criminal offending in adolescence and early adulthood on the other. Data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study (n = 15,117), containing information from surveys and registers are used. Bivariate analyses confirm a relationship between low socioeconomic status and both subjective and objective deprivation. Subjective deprivation alone is related to offending only for those from less privileged background. Subjective and objective deprivation in combination is associated with a higher risk of offending for all individuals, although the less privileged background, the higher the risk.

    Läs mer om Future Prospects, Deprivation, and Criminality – A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study

  • Locked Up and Locked Out? The Impact of Imprisonment on Labour Market Attachment

    2018. Olof Bäckman, Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson. British Journal of Criminology 58 (5), 1044-1065

    Artikel

    This article investigates what effects a first prison sentence has on labour market inclusion, both by comparing those sentenced to prison to the population as a whole, and by comparing groups of convicted offenders. We utilize longitudinal data on criminal sanctions and earnings available for two complete birth cohorts of Swedish men (N = 107,337). These data enable us to compare the labour market attachment of prison inmates both before and after imprisonment. Results from propensity score matching show small negative effects of imprisonment on post-release labour market attachment. Moreover, we find no effect for those without pre-sentence labour market attachment. Thus, the negative effects are restricted to those with some labour market attachment before imprisonment.

    Läs mer om Locked Up and Locked Out? The Impact of Imprisonment on Labour Market Attachment

  • Comparing Employment Trajectories before and after First Imprisonment in Four Nordic Countries

    2017. Mikko Aaltonen (et al.). British Journal of Criminology 57 (4), 828-847

    Artikel

    Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-release employment prospects. Little is known, however, about whether or not offenders’ employment trajectories before and after imprisonment are similar across countries. As a first step towards filling this gap in research, this paper provides evidence on employment trajectories before and after imprisonment in four Nordic welfare states: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Using data gathered from administrative records on incarcerated offenders, the analysis focuses on individuals imprisoned for the first time and who served a prison sentence less than one year in length. Results show that although employment trajectories develop in mostly similar ways before and after imprisonment across these countries, important differences exist.

    Läs mer om Comparing Employment Trajectories before and after First Imprisonment in Four Nordic Countries

  • The gender gap in crime is decreasing, but who’s growing equal to whom?

    2017. Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson, Olof Bäckman. Sociologisk forskning 54 (4), 359-363

    Artikel

    The declining gender gap in crime, observed in many Western countries, including Sweden, is often interpreted as showing an alarming shift in the offending of young women. Explanations to the observed pattern are often based on an assumption that women are increasingly coming to mimic the criminal behaviour of men, while we in this essay argue that to the extent behavioural change is at play, it is rather the other way around: men mimic women’s behaviour.

    Läs mer om The gender gap in crime is decreasing, but who’s growing equal to whom?

  • The unequal crime drop

    2017. Anders Nilsson, Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman. European Journal of Criminology 14 (5), 586-605

    Artikel

    Since the 1990s, many countries, including Sweden, have seen declining crime levels. In this article, we study whether this general trend is concealing differences between different social groups. In contrast to the few studies that have to date examined the issue of inequality in the crime drop, we focus on the social background of offenders rather than crime victims. We analyse register data covering three entire Swedish birth cohorts, in which convictions data have been linked to data on parental incomes. In this way, we are able to examine changes over time in the distribution of crime among individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Our results show that crime trends differ by socioeconomic background: decreases in crime (theft offences) are greater among the more affluent, and increases (violent crime) are primarily located among the lower levels of the income distribution. This produces an increasing inequality in the conviction risk, primarily among men. Different mechanisms that can contribute to an understanding of why crime has become increasingly concentrated among less affluent social groups are discussed.

    Läs mer om The unequal crime drop

  • The Darker Side of Equality? The Declining Gender Gap in Crime

    2016. Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman, Anders Nilsson. British Journal of Criminology 56 (6), 1272-1290

    Artikel

    In this article, we elucidate the way the gender gap in crime has changed in Sweden since the mid-19th century. The analysis is directed at theft offences and violent crime. The long historical perspective provides a background to our analysis that focuses on the period since the 1980s. Our principal data are comprised of the registered offending of different birth cohorts. Most of the findings from our study refute the hypothesis that the declining gender gap in crime is due to an increasing number of women committing offences. Instead, the most important driving forces in recent times have been a powerful decline in the number of men convicted of theft crime and a net-widening effect causing a rise in womens’ convictions for violence.

    Läs mer om The Darker Side of Equality? The Declining Gender Gap in Crime

  • Offending, drug abuse and life chances — a longitudinal study of a Stockholm birth cohort

    2014. Anders Nilsson, Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 15 (2), 128-142

    Artikel

    There are many factors, both empirical and theoretical, which indicate that drug abuse can play an important role in explaining the links between criminality and life chances when viewed from a life-course perspective. In this article, we examine the links between crime and drug abuse and social inclusion and exclusion in adult life, and look at whether there are gender-specific patterns in these regards. The Stockholm Birth Cohort database allows us to follow a birth cohort born in 1953 to age 56. The results show that drug abuse is central both to processes of continuity in and desistance from crime and to life chances in adulthood. For the adult outcomes that relate to work and health, we also note a tendency towards polarization; the size of both the relative and the absolute differences between the comparison group and offenders with registered drug abuse increases over time. The same general pattern can be seen for males and females.

    Läs mer om Offending, drug abuse and life chances — a longitudinal study of a Stockholm birth cohort

  • The life course of young male and female offenders

    2014. Olof Bäckman (et al.). British Journal of Criminology 54 (3), 393-410

    Artikel

    Individuals’ life chances are shaped by the times and events that they experience. This emphasizes the need for studies that focus on staggered birth cohorts. The article presents a new longitudi-nal data set that includes three complete Swedish birth cohorts, born in 1965, 1975 and 1985. Comparisons between the different birth cohorts show how offending distributions among young offenders, as well as their socio-demographic backgrounds and life chances, have developed over time. The analyses of stability and change presented in the study may serve as a point of departure for more informed discussions of the significance of societal changes for the criminality and life chances of male and female offenders.

    Läs mer om The life course of young male and female offenders

  • Why are occupational safety crimes increasing?

    2014. Felipe Estrada (et al.). Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 15 (1), 3-18

    Artikel

    The objective of this article is to analyse the structure of, and trends in, reported occupational safety crimes. The central focus is directed at analysing how we might understand the substantial increase in the number of reported offences witnessed during the first decade of the 21st century. In order to analyse trends in occupational safety crimes we proceed from both official crime statistics and data that have been compiled specifically for the purposes of this study, including a nationally representative sample of offence reports relating to the occupational safety crimes reported to the police. The results show that the increase in reported offenses is primarily due to a shift in definitions and in the reactions of the authorities rather than to a powerful increase in the number of actual crimes committed. This leads to the conclusion that registered occupational safety offences should first and foremost be viewed as a measure of the work of the authorities, rather than as an indicator of real crime trends.

    Läs mer om Why are occupational safety crimes increasing?

  • Youth and crime in Sweden

    2014. David Shannon (et al.). Oxford handbooks online

    Kapitel

    This chapter describes trends in crime among Swedish youth on the basis of both official statistics and alternative indicators, noting a decline over time both in the general level of youth involvement in crime and in the size of the gender gap, particularly in official statistics. The system of reactions to youth crime in Sweden is described, together with central reforms implemented over the past 15 years and trends in sanctioning practice since the mid-1990s. Returning to the issue of the declining gender gap, the chapter concludes by presenting new data on both justice system sanctions and childhood resources and by discussing what these data might contribute to our understanding and interpretation of the declining sex differences in officially recorded crime.

    Läs mer om Youth and crime in Sweden

  • Involvement in Crime, Individual Resources and Structural Constraints

    2013. Anders Nilsson, Olof Bäckman, Felipe Estrada. British Journal of Criminology 53 (2), 297-318

    Artikel

    In this article, we study how a central welfare outcome, labour market attachment, develops for different groups defined on the basis of their criminal involvement over the life course. Can we see the pattern of increasing inter-group disparities in labour market attachment that would be predicted by cumulative disadvantage theories? If so, is this a result of the criminal history of individuals or should criminal involvement be seen as one element in a negative life trajectory in a more general sense? And what role do circumstances at the structural level play in such a process? The Swedish economic recession of the 1990s and an examination of how a Stockholm cohort entered, lived through and then exited the unemployment crisis provide an opportunity to study how macro events affect different groups of individuals in a specific socio-historical situation. Our results show that both individual resources and historical events at the structural level are important when it comes to describing individual biographies and events in the life course.

    Läs mer om Involvement in Crime, Individual Resources and Structural Constraints

  • Unga och brott i Sverige

    2013. Olof Bäckman (et al.).

    Rapport

    I rapporten beskrivs barns och ungas utsatthet för brott samt ungdomsbrottslighetens omfattning och utveckling. Dessutom analyseras de demografiska och sociala bakgrundsfaktorerna bakom ungdomsbrottslighet.

    Läs mer om Unga och brott i Sverige

  • Does It Cost More to Be a Female Offender?

    2012. Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson. Feminist Criminology 7 (3), 196-219

    Artikel

    In this article, we use a new and rich longitudinal data set, the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study, which allows us to follow a cohort of girls and boys until they reach 48 years of age. We study differences in the social background and adult living conditions among men and women with different experiences of involvement in crime. It is clear that the female cohort members who have been registered for crime have experienced more disadvantaged childhoods than the males registered for offending. The results also indicate that involvement in crime seems to cost more for females, in terms of social exclusion.

    Läs mer om Does It Cost More to Be a Female Offender?

  • Criminality and life-chances

    2011. Anders Nilsson, Olof Bäckman, Felipe Estrada.

    Konferens

    There is currently a lack of research that is able to describe the longer term consequences of involvement in crime for broader welfare outcomes in adult life. And it exists even less analyses of how involvement in crime interacts with conditions connected both to individual-level resources and socio-historical constraints, in producing negative life outcomes in the longer term. The aim of this paper is therefore to present a study that focuses on the long term consequences of criminal involvement, and when doing this take in to consideration both individual resource deficiencies and structural constraints.

    Läs mer om Criminality and life-chances

  • Established or excluded?

    2011. Anders Nilsson, Felipe Estrada. European Journal of Criminology 8 (3), 229-245

    Artikel

    In this article we explore the longer-term implications of criminality. We look at different groups in a birth cohort defined on the basis of their level of involvement in crime. To what extent is juvenile and adult crime related to social exclusion in mid-life? We study differences in outcomes related to work and family, and whether these differences tend to grow or diminish over time. We employ a new longitudinal data set, The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study, which provides rich and unique life-course data from birth to age 48 for 14,294 girls and boys. Our results show that criminal involvement in adulthood has a negative long-term impact on the individual’s life course and career opportunities, even after having controlled for childhood conditions and drug abuse.

    Läs mer om Established or excluded?

  • Violence at Work - The Emeregence of a Social Problem

    2010. Felipe Estrada (et al.). Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 11 (1), 46-65

    Artikel

    This article analyses trends in violence at work on the basis of victim surveys, work-environment surveys, and press material. It proceeds from the two most common explanations of why violence at work appears to have increased over recent decades. These emphasize shifts in working conditions that have increased employees' victimization risk, and a broadened view of what is regarded as work-related violence. The empirical analyses provide support for both these explanations, and the various dimensions examined—increased reporting propensities, expanded definitions, a reduced tolerance of violence, and altered working conditions—are linked to one another.

    Läs mer om Violence at Work - The Emeregence of a Social Problem

  • Våld som (bra) samhällsproblem

    2010. Felipe Estrada. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab 97 (3), 320-334

    Artikel

    In Scandinavia, as in many other European countries, violence constitutes an important focus for the public and political debate on crime. Much of what is said in the public debate, and done in the field of criminal policy, stems from a perception that violence is on the increase. This paper challenges the view that violence is rapidly increasing. Instead it is argued that the way violence is viewed in society and the subsequent response to violent offending have changed, leading to a deviancy amplification spiral. The discussion highlights the role of neo-liberal policies and the media as actors and arena, respectively, in the reation of this altered reaction.

    Läs mer om Våld som (bra) samhällsproblem

  • Kriminalitet och livschanser

    2009. Anders Nilsson, Felipe Estrada.

    Rapport

    Hur ser framtiden ut för de pojkar och flickor som under tonåren registrerats för brott? I denna rapport ser vi till olika grupper definierade utifrån brottsbelastning som unga och vuxna. Vi använder oss av ett nytt longitudinellt datamaterial, gör det möjligt att följa en kohort födda 1953 fram till 48 års ålder. För de allra flesta med brottslig belastning så har det trots allt gått bra; de har arbete och familj. De individer som begått brott både som unga och vuxna, och detta gäller i synnerhet kvinnorna, hade dock påtagligt sämre välfärdssituation i medelåldern. Deras uppväxt var också svårare. Studien illustrerar såväl långsiktiga konsekvenser av ojämlika uppväxtvillkor och brottslighet som samhällets svårigheter att komma till rätta med dessa problem

    Läs mer om Kriminalitet och livschanser

  • Segregation and victimization

    2008. Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson. The European Journal of Criminology 5 (2), 193-216

    Artikel

    As a means of improving our understanding of the significance of the residential

    neighbourhood, we have examined exposure to property crime, studying the

    extent to which differences in the risk of exposure to crime are related on the

    one hand to individual and household characteristics and on the other to

    neighbourhood conditions and differences in where people live. The data are

    drawn from interview surveys of living conditions, which also include a number

    of questions relating to criminal victimization. These survey data have been

    combined with register data relating to residential neighbourhoods. The focus is

    directed at different districts in urban areas, grouped on the basis of

    accumulated resource deficiencies.

    Läs mer om Segregation and victimization

  • Det ökade våldet i arbetslivet

    2007. Felipe Estrada, Anders Nilsson, Sofia Wikman. Nordisk tidskrift for kriminalvidenskab 94 (2), 56-73

    Artikel

    Victim surveys from both Sweden and her Nordic neighbours show that the proportion reporting exposure to violence at work has increased during the 1990s. This article examines the question of how this trend should be understood. Does the increase reflect a rise in the number of people exposed to such violence, or is it rather due to an increase in the focus on violence and a broadening of the way violence is defined? On the basis of Swedish victim surveys covering the period 1984 - 2001, the article examines whether the character of this problem has changed as regards the seriousness of the violence, the occupational groups exposed to such violence, and the extent to which victims have contacted the police. The study shows that there has been an increase in exposure to threats and violence at work. This increase is found primarily in relation to violence and not to threats, among women, and in particular those working with some form of care provision. One surprising finding is that the propensity to report work-related violence has diminished somewhat, something that is not true for other types of violence. We thus find a high propensity to report when levels of exposure are low, and a lower reporting propensity once exposure to violence has increased. This trend is conceptualized against the background of a shift in and broadening of the type of incidents reported in the context of victim surveys. Acts of violence against persons employed in the health sector, schools and in care provision are less likely to be reported to the police than violence perpetrated against members of other occupational groups. Thus as care workers come to account for an increasing proportion of both violent incidents and the victims of violence, the aggregate propensity to report such incidents decreases. When the focus is limited to those individuals working in the care sector who have themselves been exposed to violence, there are no signs of a reduction in their reporting propensity.

    Läs mer om Det ökade våldet i arbetslivet

  • Ungdomsbrottslighet som samhällsproblem

    1999. Felipe Estrada, Hanns von Hofer.

    Avhandling (Dok)

    The principal aim of this doctoral thesis is to describe the evolution of juvenile delinquency as a social problem during the post-war period. Through its four empirical studies the thesis advocates an understanding based on a contextual constructionism, which represents a compromise position between the objectivist and constructivist perspectives that dominate the field of social problems.

    The first study (Chapter 2) comprises an analysis of the development of juvenile delinquency in Sweden after 1975. The study is based on official crime statistics, victim surveys, insurance statistics and surveys of the alcohol and drug habits of young persons. The analyses do not allow for an exact determination of the actual trends in juvenile crime, but the indicators suggest that at worst the number of juveniles offenders has remained more or less stable since the mid 1970s, whilst at best the number has diminished.

    Chapter 3 describes the trends in juvenile crime in ten European countries during the post-war period. The data comprise reports, articles, statistics and personal information from researchers in the countries analysed. The study concludes that in all the countries examined, juvenile crime increases sharply during the first decades of the post-war period (1950-75). After this point, however, these trends level off in most countries.

    By means of a content analysis of editorials, Chapter 4 deals with the attention focused on juvenile delinquency in the Swedish daily press during the post-war period (1950-1994). The study shows both qualitative and quantitative changes in the way the press portray juvenile crime. Most importantly, 1986 saw the problem of juvenile violence suddenly becoming the dominant issue.

    Chapter 5 deals with the development of, and the societal response to, violence in schools (1980-1997). A content analysis of a journal for school employees indicates that responses to problems of violence in school underwent a transformation at the end of the 1980s. A study of police reports shows that reported cases of violence in schools have increased considerably. The explanation for this rise is to be found in a change in the size of the dark figure. Besides the response-sensitive official crime statistics, there is very little to indicate any substantial change in the number of juveniles being subjected to, or subjecting others to violence.

    Chapter 6 discusses the main finding produced by the thesis – namely that there has been a change in the way society reacts to juveniles who commit criminal offences that cannot be explained by the crime trends. Three alternative explanations are discussed: the media and moral panics, the ”racialisation” of the crime problem and the structural crisis of legitimacy faced by the welfare state.

    Läs mer om Ungdomsbrottslighet som samhällsproblem

Visa alla publikationer av Felipe Estrada Dörner vid Stockholms universitet

Redigera profilen

Professor, prefekt

profilePageLayout