VAD ÄR PROBLEMET REPRESENTERAT ATT VARA? : En diskursanalys enligt WPR-modellen av problemrepresentationer i politiska dokument avseende ungdomskriminaliteten i Sverige

Sammanfattning: Crime among youth is a social problem in Sweden and a much-debated topic in politics lately. The main purpose of the study is to identify and problematize the perceptions of Stefan Löfven's (2019–2021) and Ulf Kristersson's (2022) governments, which are the basis for their problem representations of youth crime in Sweden. To be able to carry out the study, we will mostly use Carol Bacchi's discourse analytical method and theory called "What's the problem represented to be?" which is abbreviated WPR. The questions we have prepared regarding the study's purpose and analysis method are as follows: How do Stefan Löfven and Ulf Kristersson governments represent the crime problem among youth? What perceptions about criminality among youth underlie the government’s problem representations? What is left unproblematic in the problem representations? The conclusions are that Stefan Löfven's government focuses a lot on rehabilitating criminal youth, the focus is thus on the underlying socio-economic causes of the problem of crime. What is left invisible in the problem representation thus shows how victims of crime are affected by the criminal acts of criminal youth. Ulf Kristersson's government sees the problem as that victims of crime are not treated fairly; therefore, criminal youth must be locked up to reduce illegal activity. What is thus made invisible is how these criminal youth are ultimately affected by this measure. With this, we concluded that both governments’ problem representations are based on many shortcomings and ignorance. This is because many important issues according to previous research, such as individual risk factors, are left unproblematic in the problem representations.