Local understandings of juvenile delinquency

In recent years, criminality among young people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods has been highlighted in Sweden, like in several other countries. The media frequently report on criminal gangs actively recruiting young, unemployed men, often with an immigrant background, and on violent confrontations between young people and representatives of the police force and the emergency services. This has put a great pressure on decision makers and involved authorities to “do something”, and to involve residents in joint efforts to overcome the situation.

      In an on-going Ph.D. project, various ideas about proper ways to intervene, based on different definitions and understandings of juvenile delinquency and hostile confrontations between local youth and legal authorities, are being identified and analysed from a social constructionist perspective. A substantial amount of qualitative data has been gathered, primarily interviews with professionals, residents and youths as well as field notes from informal meetings and discussions in the troubled neighbourhoods. This empirical material is being subjected to a narrative analysis.

      The aim of this paper is to present local ways of explaining what causes juvenile crime and the aggressive confrontations mentioned above. Questions such as ‘what is the problem?’, ‘who or what is at danger?’, ‘who is threatening whom or what?’ and ‘who is to blame?’ have been posed to the local accounts of neighbourhood problems and youth crime found in transcribed interviews with police officers, social workers, and adult as well as adolescent residents. Another aspect of the study is about how local explanations are influenced by larger societal discourses and various sociological theories and how these different conceptions are woven together and in the translation process are given a new meaning.