Criminal law is directed at distinct individual actions and is therefore less suited for combating patterned, repeated, and collective actions. In an attempt to overcome such problems, the concept of violence capital was introduced in an amendment to the Swedish Criminal Code in 2016. The current study aims at initiating an academic debate and theory development regarding violence capital, through critical engagement with the empirical case of how the concept of violence capital was constructed when it was introduced in Swedish criminal policy and criminal law. The legal reform seems to mainly rest on the work of a specific group within the Swedish Council of Crime Prevention. Furthermore, violence capital comes across as a somewhat “slippery” concept without links to wider academic debates. The study highlights the fact that such a fundamental form of social action as violence has been absent in the academic line of thought regarding different forms of capital. Also, there is a gap between common sense ways of understanding patterns of violence and their cumulative effects and researcher models. As the concept seems to be largely unknown outside of the Swedish language media and policy debates, to be relevant to wider academic debates, the concept needs to be more clearly defined and theorized. Further developed, the concept of violence capital has the potential to shed light upon the process whereby individual acts may accumulate collective, transferable resources.

Since the 1980s in Sweden, children’s violent actions in schools have been reported to the police as criminal offences more frequently than before. This increasing trend is analysed against the background of a general increased cultural sensitivity to violence and slowly developing social changes that affect the propensity to report every form of violent incident to the police. This project analyses 1,239 police reports of assault, unlawful threat, molestation and insulting behaviour committed in schools by 7- to 14-year olds in ten municipalities in the Stockholm area. The time period studied is from 2000 to 2010. Regression analysis shows systematic differences among schools in different areas and social contexts. Average merit ratings, which are a measure of the educational quality of schools, explain most of the variance and correlate negatively with reported incidents. There are also significant differences among municipalities and school forms in terms of police reports. So-called resource schools, which are designed to serve children with special needs, report extremely high numbers of incidents per child. Reporting seems to have been routinised in many schools, including resource schools. Our results can be interpreted as suggesting that increased cultural sensitivity generates a bias against children in less affluent contexts.

This thesis is about police reports concerning school violence in Sweden involving children below the age of criminal responsibility. Police reports about incidents caused by pupils in Swedish compulsory schools have increased since at least the 1980s. In research on violent, threatening and insulting acts among children in schools, incidence and causes are often studied in terms of bullying and degrading treatment. Criminological studies on children's violent acts, in schools, is mainly based on information on children aged 15 and over. Research on why police reports are filed about younger children in compulsory schools is limited. The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse school-related police reports, in relation to children’s unwanted actions in compulsory schools with the goal of understanding the intentionality in every day practice. The empirical material consists of four studies of which three have been conducted using qualitative methods through analysing legal documents, using content analysis of texts in school-related police reports and interviews with Principals. The fourth study has been carried out with statistical analysis of school-related police reports. The results of the studies are presented in four papers. This thesis takes the approach from modern sociology which is used both as perspectives and theory. The perspectives concern modernity, social control and cultural sensitivity. The theoretical framework is based on theory of systems and lifeworld. The concluding analysis shows local differences in the assessments on which action will be reported to the police. It is mainly Principals who make reports to the police but also parents. Principals’ police reports are based on social commitment and early intervention and parents report concern about repeated school bullying of their children. Despite diverse local practices certain patterns appear. Boys in the 13-14 years age group are the ones most often seen as perpetrators in the police reports. Two particularly prominent patterns become visible at the school level. Most police reports are related to schools with low grades and to so-called resource schools. This indicates that the unwanted actions of disadvantaged children are more often reported to the police than the actions of other children. The filing of police reports can be understood as a result of difficulties among adults to reach common understanding on how children’s problems should be handled in school systems everyday practice.

Education to achieve a sense of justice?

Unwanted actions in Swedish compulsory schools, such as violent and threatening behaviour, occur among children, and school-related reports to the police concerning children under the age of criminal responsibility have increased. There are no specific regulations stating that the police must be contacted when a child hits or threatens other children in school. However, school staff are obliged to report concerns about children’s well-being to social services. In Swedish compulsory schools, it is usually the school principal who decides whether an incident should be reported to the police. In this article seventeen interviews with principals about their attitudes to school-related reports to the police are analysed, focusing on children aged 7–14 who subject other children to violent and threatening acts in school. If children under the age of 15 are alleged to have committed crimes, they are diverted from the justice system to the welfare system, i.e. the social services. In most cases a report to the police of a child under 15 suspected of crime leads to a referral by the police to the social services with concern for a child at risk. Results demonstrate that principals differ considerably in assessing which acts are to be regarded as suspected crimes and at what minimum age a report should be made to the police. This suggests that the same unwanted action can be met with completely different reactions from the adult world in different schools. Some principals said that they report incidents among minors to highlight their concern about the welfare of the suspected child, having previously repeatedly expressed concerns to social services and sometimes to parents, without seeing any measures taken to prevent the child from continuing to commit unwanted actions in school.

Skolrelaterade polisanmälningar avseende barn under 15 år som misstänks för misshandel, olaga hot, ofredanden och förolämpningar har ökat i svenska grundskolor. Vid sådana handlingar finns flera anmälningsförfaranden som kan aktualiseras. Grundregeln är att ansvaret för att åtgärda och/eller kompensera för sådana handlingar läggs på vuxna. Polisanmälningar utgör ett undantag eftersom barnets eget ansvar då står i fokus. Brottsmisstänkta barn är i första hand ett ansvar för socialtjänsten och inte för rättsväsendet. Inom barndomsforskning ses barn sedan 1980-talet som sociala och kompetenta aktörer med egna rättigheter. I individualiserat samhälle anses den utvecklingen kunna riskera att avkräva barn skyldigheter i samma omfattning som rättigheter. Författaren analyserar skolrelaterade polisanmälningar avseende barn 7-14 år för åren 2000-2010. Resultatet visar att anmälningarna används som ett medel för att disciplinera barn och för att kommunicera mellan de sociala systemen skola – familj – socialtjänst. Bruket av polisanmälningarna riskerar att försena möjligheten för socialtjänsten att fullgöra sitt ansvar.

Den här rapporten innehåller en processutvärdering av projekt Skarpnäckslyftet. Projektet har som syfte att genom samverkan mellan, privata, kommunala och statliga aktörer komma till rätta med allmänhetens upplevda otrygghet som relaterats till sysslolösa ungdomar i stadsdelen Skarpnäck i Stockholm. Projektets huvudsakliga målsättning är att öka känslan av trygghet för boende i området genom att verka stödjande för ungdomar och deras familjer. Ersta Sköndal högskola fick uppdraget att utvärdera projektet våren 2011 och avrapportering skedde hösten 2011. Uppdragsgivarna är dels Skarpnäcks stadsdelförvaltning och dels Stockholms stads utvecklingsenhet. Det övergripande syftet med den här formativa halvtidsutvärderingen har varit att stödja den fortsatta utvecklingen av Skarpnäckslyftet genom att definiera vad som görs och hur det görs.

Utvärderingen innefattar även jämförelser mellan Skarpnäckslyftet och stadsdelen Spånga Tenstas modell för samverkan när barn riskerar att utvecklas ogynnsamt, SamtidigtFörst. En jämförelse görs även mellan Skarpnäckslyftet och intentionerna för samverkan mellan myndigheter i regeringens förslag om sociala insatsgrupper (SOU 2010:15). Förutom att definiera projekt Skarpnäckslyftet tar rapporten upp ett flertal teoetiska aspekter av och förutsättningar för samverkan mellan människobehandlande organisationer så som socialtjänst, polis, skola, stiftelser och frivilligorganisationer när barn och unga på olika sätt riskerar att fara illa.