Dagens ungdomsbrottslighet: ett samhällsproblem eller ett mediefenomen? En kritisk diskursanalys av utvalda svenska nyhetskällors rapportering om den rådande ungdomsbrottsligheten i Sverige

Sammanfattning: The current juvenile delinquency has been a debated subject for a long time, for instance among politicians, scientists, media and the police. Some think it has increased dramatically during the last years, while some claim the opposite. During the fall of 2017 the government commissioned an investigation regarding a proposal of removing the juvenile discount for young offenders. The treatment ideology has been the basis of choice of penalties for young people, but with the proposal about removing the juvenile discount, it indicates a distancing from this ideology. The aim of this study is to investigate how media formulate their discourses on juvenile delinquency by using Fairclough’s interdisciplinary approach critical discourse analysis and Foucault’s view on power. The starting point for this reasoning is that media can produce normative issues in society and thereby also be able to influence the legal system. The findings of this study showed that the selected Swedish news sources pictured juvenile delinquency as a social problem and needs to be taken care of in forms of harder penalties. In comparison with these discourses and the crime statistics, these does not correlate with each other as the majority of crime statistics show no significant increase in juvenile delinquency during the past years. It is not possible though to draw a definitive conclusion on this topic as further research will be needed. There may be additional reasons why crime statistics do not show an increase that this study does not focus on.