The purpose of this study is to compare the representation of criminals in the Swedish television show ?Efterlyst? regarding ethnical background between the year 1998 and the year 2006. The aim is to determine if and how the representation of ethnicity have changed over the examined years. We have then examined 13 shows from each year and categorized the criminals by ethnicity, type of crime and length of each segment. We have come to a conclusion that the show has a noticeable overrepresentation of criminals with non-Swedish ethnical background.

Attitudes towards violence were assessed using both implicit (The Single Category Implicit Association Test; Karpinski & Steinman, 2006) and explicit measurements (a Feeling Thermometer). A group of criminals showed more positive explicit and implicit attitudes towards violence than a group of non-criminals. In addition, The Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992) revealed significant differences in aggression between the groups; criminals' mean scores were higher on all four subscales (physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger and hostility). Furthermore, significant correlations were found between all the measures, including the implicit and explicit attitude measures. The findings support the validity of the SC-IAT as an implicit measure of violent attitudes.

What is an economic crime? Who is an economic criminal? How do we speak of the phenomenon and what does they way we speak mean? The immediate result of the study is that there is a stereotype image of the economic criminal that is produced within peoples speech. This image contains characteristics that bring the subject, the economic criminal, far away from the traditional crime subject, and brings it closer to a non-criminal subject. This motion render possible that economic criminals can talk of themselves as ?not bad people?, ?normal? and ?like everyone else?.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine the process of resocialization for individuals who previously lived as criminals from an individual perspective. The research questions for the essay are: How do individuals in the study describe their process of resocialization? In which way does a support organization affect the process of resocialization for the individual? In which ways do the reactions from society affect the process of resocialization for the individual?To answer these research questions a qualitative method was chosen where six narrative interviews was conducted with men who previously lived as criminals but have been resocialized into society. These men are roughly between the ages of 30-60 years and are all members of a support organization for ex criminals.The results show that the process is divided in four stages and that the support organization has facilitated the process of resocialization of the respondents. Reactions from society both facilitates change using the help of different agencies can contribute, while negative reactions from other individuals makes change difficult.

The aim of this study is to explore the effects of probation officers and their work. The following questions have been asked to come to a conclusion: How do probation officers view their work and the purpose of it? What are the effects of probation officers work? The approach of the study is of a qualitative nature and has been conducted by interviewing three officers of the correctional service system, three probation officers and two ex-criminals that have been on probation. The selection is based on a snowball type selection. To analyse the results of the study we have applied previous research and phenomenological theory to examine the experience of correctional service officers, probation officers and ex criminals.

The purpose of this essay is to contribute to an extensive understanding of Former criminals and addicts. These people are facing several difficulties and possibilities during childhood, adolescence, the active period, the turning-point and life after the turning-point and we have examined what they might consist of.In this survey we have applied a qualitative method and collected our basis from interviews with Former criminals and addicts. Criminality and addiction is a complex problem. There are many different factors which contribute to develop this. The most differential factors are; insecure childhood, low self-esteem and wrong kind of friends.

According to statistics two thirds of Swedish criminals relapse into crimes within three years (Brå, 2007). Researchers suggest a relationship between attitudes toward crime and delinquent behaviour (Andrews & Bonta, 2003), but whether these attitudes are implicit or explicit remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to measure both constructs. Using SC-IAT (Karpinski & Steinman, 2006) and constructs from the Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985), criminals (N = 51) in three different prisons in southern Sweden were tested. Analysis yielded mixed results.

The European union started as an area of economic cooperation, but has developed into an area of cooperation in many legal fields. There are these days even cooperation when it comes to dealing with criminals. There is a new procedure called the European arrest warrant which goal is to make the extradition of criminals between the different member states in the European union more efficient. Sometimes when a state receives a European arrest warrant they have to extradite the person in question without doing any investigation of their own. The procedure is based on the principle of mutual recognition.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine the tv-show Efterlyst?s (Wanted)effects on viewers when it comes to how crime, criminals and victims are portrayed in the show. In order to achieve the purpose of our the study, both  quantitative and  qualitative approaches were used We compared the image Efterlyst gives of crime, criminals and victims to statistical information from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and The Central Bureau of Statistiscs. By using focus-groups we also studied how Efterlyst portrays, in the season of 2009, and how it may have affected its viewers. Our conclusion was that there are important differences between how Efterlyst portrays crime and the image of crime the statistics gives.

Due to the attention of several escapes, rescue attempts and hostage situations from Swedish prisons during the year of 2004 a debate about correctional system and safety arose. It resulted in official reports and proposals to improve the safety of the institutions. The incidents of 2004 will most likely have an effect on the discourse of the correctional system. The purpose with this study is to analyse which discourses that today can be distinguished in the correctional system and thereby will be the foundation of the correctional systemof tomorrow. The method used to answer the purpose of the study is a Foucauldian based discourse analysis.

The aim of this study was to examine Former criminals? experiences of help and support of importance to leave a criminal life style. The study consists of six interviews with Former criminals and earlier studies on the subject. These studies show that relapse in crime are most common among those who are socially excluded from society. They also show that important factors to end a life in criminality are for example a supportive social network.

The aim of this study is to discuss the diagnosis ADHD as a meaning-making discourse that is something more than just a diagnosis with a set of symptoms. I aim to discuss that the diagnosis is productive and can be seen as a means to control and to comfort individuals. The research was based on a method consisting of an idea analysis and a discourse analysis. I am using both a discourse analysis and a critical ideology analysis as perspectives. These perspectives are also based on a general theory of late modernity.

AbstractThere is a general perception that women are victims and men are the perpetrators of sexual offense. Female perpetrators of sexual crimes have been neglected in the research literature, because female sex offenders do not live up to preconceptions of female as motherly and caring. Females tend to be responsible for a very small portion of all crimes and are estimated to account for 1-2% of all sexual offenses. Theories use to discuss female sex offending include neutralization of behavior, mental health and feminist theory. The aim of the present study was to describe female sex offenders and examine the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim by analyzing court judgments.

The aim of this study was to investigate factors that ex-criminals believe have been of importance to them when they decided to leave a lifestyle of criminality behind. The study was based on eight semi-structured interviews with informants who had committed various forms of crime. Common to all informants is that they are now members in the Swedish association KRIS (In English: CRIS, Criminals Return Into Society), living a life without crime. The stories of the informants have been analyzed on the theoretical basis of social ties, the exit process, role loss, motivation and the life course perspective. Our study showed that the informants have been affected and motivated by various life events that could be identified and pin-pointed during the interviews.

This paper starts where previous research in this scientific field, research about individuals who managed to end their criminal lifestyle, ends ? by talking in terms of Pierre Bourdieu?s forms of capital. In former studies the researchers pointed out access to a job and parenting as helpful factors to end a criminal lifestyle. Our purpose with this paper, however, was to find out if it is possible to understand criminals successfully ending their criminal lifestyle from Bourdieu?s capital metaphors and Mark Granovetter?s concept of strong and weak ties.