'Behöver hjälp att skydda sig från sig själv'

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to study categorisations of criminality in decisions on compulsory care for children aged 15-17 and how these articulations are used to argue for interventions. The study examined 24 judicial decisions on compulsory care from seven different administrative courts containing the word “kriminalitet”, as well as an articulation of criminal behaviour and from that an argument for compulsory care. I analysed the administrative verdicts with tools from Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory of chain of equivalence and investigated how criminality is articulated and what it is antagonistic to. This was done from the theoretic perspective of discourse on criminality, control and discipline from Michel Foucault. I found that the youths articulated with a criminal behaviour, was described as sick or without agency and in medical jargon sick and in need for treatment. These shortcomings of the youths were described as risks that they would ‘end up in’ criminality and thus signified the need for intervention.