Du, jag och staten - ett uträknat förhållande

Sammanfattning: Since the mid 1900s, the “ the Swedish model ”, has contributed to that all Swedish citiziens has a right to community benefits in case of illnesses, accidents or unemployment. For this system to work, there has to be a mutual trust between the taxpayers and the government; everyone has to take responsibility and notify the government if they´re no longer in need of the benefit. The main focus in this study lays on twenty different offenders who´s been sentenced for benefit frauds. The questions of the study is to find out how the offenders that committed these crimes justify them, and if the size of the illegally taken amount is of any importance for the argument they have about it. A document analysis of twenty verdicts from different district courts in Sweden between 2007- 2012, was made. David Sykes and Matzas techniques of neutralization have been used as a method, in the process of encoding a total of 158 sentences. Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of a “consumer society” describes how people are valuated by their capacity to consume. The hypothesis of this study is that this can lead to crime against the government´s community benefits system, because a lifestyle based on consumption creates a need for a higher income. The result shows that the denial of responsibility is the most common technique of neutralization, used by all offenders. The denial of injury, used by thirteen offenders, and the condemnation of the condemners, used by ten offenders. The size of the illegally stolen amount does have a certain importance when it comes to the offender´s way of argue for their actions. Although, it´s only possible to draw any conclusions within the maximum limit of amount, between 100 000- 1 000 000 Swedish crowns, where the offenders shows a greater apathy towards their own criminality.