Prevention of recidivism and relapse of addiction after LVM : A qualitative study of the treatment work at the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care.

Sammanfattning: Drug abuse often correlates with a criminal career. Compulsory care of addicts aims to motivate the individual to come to terms with their addiction. However, crime can be part of the lifestyle that the addict gets involved in. This essay examines how the preventive treatment at the State Board of Institutions in Sweden works to prevent relapse for both addiction and crime. The issues also concern collaboration in addition to treatment work. The material was gathered through qualitative semi-structured interviews with five people in the treatment staff at one of the State Department Board's LVM homes. The analysis was a thematic analysis and the collection of material resulted in three themes: "treatment work", "lack of knowledge among staff" and "collaboration". The informants believe that the treatment work has a good effect through the social bonds that are created between the client and treatment staff, but also so called “treatment conversations”. Clients are perceived to have high motivation during the time for LVM, but this often decreases after LVM completion. The result of the study shows that there is a lack of knowledge among treatment staff, mainly regarding crime prevention and psychiatry. Collaboration is perceived to work deficient, and informants highlight shortcomings in the provision of information between the actors involved. The results are subsequently attributed to social bond theory, the age-graded theory of informal social control, routine activity theory and to previous research on addiction and crime. The results are intended to be used instrumentally in order to improve the treatment work at the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care, which in turn improves prevention for both substance abuse and crime.