Varför begår ungdomar brott? En kvalitativ studie om socialarbetares syn på ungdomar som begår brott

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into social workers’ views on young people who commit crimes, focusing on juvenile delinquency risk factors and the social work that is done for young people who commit crimes. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with ten social workers who have experience working with young people who commit crimes. The interviews were analyzed using Sahlin’s (1994) theory of social work clients being seen as villains or wretches. The results of this study show that young people who commit crimes are described as villains when social workers talk about the young people’s behavior as a risk factor, and those same young people are described as wretches when social workers talk about their feelings and mental health as risk factors. Our study showed that a social worker’s preconceptions of young people who commit crimes can be nuanced and that social workers can see a young person both as a villain and as a wretch. When it came to the work that the social workers do, we found that the social workers’ goal was to do what was best for the young person and to not treat the young people as villains, but rather as wretches, according to Sahlin (1994) theory.