Unga kriminella i samhället - En kvalitativ dokumentanalys om konstruktionen av ungdomsbrottslighet

Sammanfattning: Abstract Author: Rickard Rudelius and Maria Olsson Title: Youth offenders in society - a qualitative analysis of documents on the construction of juvenile delinquency. Supervisor: Lars B Ohlsson How a social phenomenon is defined is an important scientific question (Blumer, 1970). On that basis, does this study aim to look into how the juvenile delinquency is constructed in the Swedish governments official investigation (SOU) during the 21st-century and to give an understanding into what scientific ideas that may have influenced the construct. Furthermore was the objective to see if there is a difference in the construction of the phenomenon during the 21st-century. The empirical evidence in this study consists of two SOU-investigations, SOU 2004:122 and SOU 2012:34. In this study we argue that the construct of juvenile delinquency is dependent on the values that exist within the timeframe and that it has shifted in certain areas from 2004 to 2012. In our findings we show how youth offenders is systematically categorized after age and gender and, dependent on the level of offence, how they are categorized with social problems. We show a shift in the construct of juvenile delinquency from a 15-17 year old man-based perspective into including 18-20 year old criminals as well as women. Our results also show how the solution to the phenomenon is constructed and the problem that consist between the justice system and the organization tasked with treating the young offenders. Keyword: “Juvenile delinquency”, “Construct”, “Categorization”, “Crime” “Young offender”