Bråk eller brott? Polisanmälningar mot barn i grundskolan

Sammanfattning: This study explores attitudes of the professions that are involved in the process when children in primary school are reported to the police. The empirical material is based on interviews performed with police officers, social workers, a school counselor and a teacher. We applied two theories in our result and analysis. One sociological theory concerning the occurrence of deviant behaviour, and another one regarding collaboration between different professions. Our result and analysis indicates that one of the main reasons for a flawed collaboration relates to an imbalance in the power relations of the involved collaborateurs, where some of them become more dominant than others. A well functioning interprofessional collaboration seems to be characterized by the achievement of balance in these power relations, with well established channels of communication. There also appears to be a lack of knowledge of what the long term effects of reporting children to the police potentially can be. Another observation is that these police reports frequently seem to be based on people's personal feelings and convictions in the absence of sufficient guidelines being available to schools.In our discussion we raise, among other things, the question of how the increase of children's legal rights seems to correlate with an increased expectation of obligations. This way of thinking makes it possible for children to be considered solely responsible for their actions, as opposed to being victims of their social circumstances.