Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand

Reforming the Work to Combat Long-Term Homelessness in Sweden

Examining recent strategies to combat long-term homelessness, the article looks at two social policy reforms implemented in a Swedish municipality. The first of these involved dismantling of the existing hostel system and its replacement with the ‘housing staircase’ model. The second meant the end of the housing staircase model and the engagement of private for-profit companies in the municipal special-housing service provision. By incorporating the new actors within its homeless policy framework, however, the municipality has merely adjusted its approach to accommodate a practice already followed on the ground to legitimize an existing situation. The reforms resulted in revisions to official policy and organizational structures, while actual practices remained unaffected. As a result, little has changed in the situation of the long-term homeless. Regardless of the type of service supplier (municipal, for profit or non-profit), measures to counteract homelessness in Sweden have remained dependent on a general premise equating homelessness with addiction, mental illness and deviance more broadly. Alternatives based on access to regular housing are not even debated, despite the success such approaches have had elsewhere.

Doing ‘dirty work’: Stigma and esteem in the private security industry

This article draws upon two different ethnographic studies – one based in Sweden, the other in the United Kingdom – to explore how private security officers working in a stigmatized industry construct and repair their self-esteem. Whereas the concept of ‘dirty work’ (Hughes, 1951) has been applied to public police officers, an examination of private security officers as dirty workers remains undeveloped. Along with describing instances of taint designation and management, we find that the occupational culture of security officers enhances self-esteem by infusing security work with a sense of purpose. As members of a tainted occupation, security officers employ a range of strategies to deflect scorn and reframe their work as important and necessary.

Supporting young crime victims: discursive environments and formula narratives

Within the crime victim movement and discourse on victimization, a novel victim category has been introduced: the young crime victim. This article analyses the professional discourse formed around the new notion, focusing on the needs of the young crime victim along with the practices, tools, and techniques used to deal with resistance at a support centre for young crime victims in Sweden. The institutional or professional discourse, which functions as an environment for the youths’ stories about crime and victim support, affirms some stories and marginalizes others. It is reproduced through two overarching formula narratives helping to organize and lend legitimacy to the support work: one constructed around the ‘bad’ or resistant victim and the other around the ‘good’ or compliant victim. The young crime victims interviewed for this study generally reproduced the narrative on the ‘good’ victim in reporting on their experience. Although other findings indicate that there is possible room for an alternative approach to help-seeking clients, a third narrative emphasizes the uniqueness of the clients needs and personal competences. This narrative nonetheless remains but a subordinate one, evidently not part of the dominant professional discourse.

Understanding Victim Support as Crime Prevention Work: The Construction of Young Victims and Villains in the Dominant Crime Victim Discourse in Sweden

Starting from the observation that a new victim category has emerged in the form of the ‘young crime victim’, this article explores the notion of support to young crime victims as crime prevention work, considering it as an important constituent of the dominant crime victim discourse among support professionals. In the context of the support work, the (young) ‘victim’ and the (young) ‘villain’ provide mutually necessary counterparts constructed in relation to each other. Corresponding to this division, two approaches in criminal and crime prevention policy and practice are then analysed using Garlands notions of ‘the criminology of the self’ and ‘the criminology of the other’. The first of these strategies is generally associated with rehabilitative measures (with the resulting normalization of the crime, its victims, and villains), while in the second punitive measures remain the norm (with the crime, its victims, and villains becoming ‘Otherized’). Yet, as shown within the context of rehabilitation org...Starting from the observation that a new victim category has emerged in the form of the ‘young crime victim’, this article explores the notion of support to young crime victims as crime prevention work, considering it as an important constituent of the dominant crime victim discourse among support professionals. In the context of the support work, the (young) ‘victim’ and the (young) ‘villain’ provide mutually necessary counterparts constructed in relation to each other. Corresponding to this division, two approaches in criminal and crime prevention policy and practice are then analysed using Garlands notions of ‘the criminology of the self’ and ‘the criminology of the other’. The first of these strategies is generally associated with rehabilitative measures (with the resulting normalization of the crime, its victims, and villains), while in the second punitive measures remain the norm (with the crime, its victims, and villains becoming ‘Otherized’). Yet, as shown within the context of rehabilitation organized as support to young crime victims, both of these (at first glance mutually contradictory) discourses are drawn upon and operationalized by the professional support staff constructing images of young victims and villains in their daily work. Help-seeking youths resistant to identifying as victims remain represented as (possible future) villains.

Private security policing by ‘ethnic matching’ in Swedish suburbs: avoiding and managing accusations of ethnic discrimination

Recent research has stressed the dependency of the private security industry on public recognition and legitimacy. This article discusses how one Swedish security company, through the work of its individual security officers ‘on the ground’, carries out legitimation work in relation to the public. The empirical focus in this examination is on the companys work vis-à-vis youths from ‘foreign’ backgrounds in the ethnically and socioeconomically segregated suburbs of one of the largest cities in Sweden. The ethnographic data collected through field-based interviews and observations on the security company officers’ work, perceptions and views point to a specific type of legitimacy management strategy adopted by the company in question in its operational context: ‘policing by ethnic matching’. The article shows how this strategy is implemented to avoid anticipated accusations of ethnic discrimination, to manage such accusations when they nevertheless occur and to repair the legitimacy of the business when it is seen to have been damaged. The techniques used in the companys efforts to advance its legitimacy claims are shown to rely on impression and emotion management.Recent research has stressed the dependency of the private security industry on public recognition and legitimacy. This article discusses how one Swedish security company, through the work of its individual security officers ‘on the ground’, carries out legitimation work in relation to the public. The empirical focus in this examination is on the companys work vis-a-vis youths from ‘foreign’ backgrounds in the ethnically and socioeconomically segregated suburbs of one of the largest cities in Sweden. The ethnographic data collected through field-based interviews and observations on the security company officers’ work, perceptions and views point to a specific type of legitimacy management strategy adopted by the company in question in its operational context: ‘policing by ethnic matching’. The article shows how this strategy is implemented to avoid anticipated accusations of ethnic discrimination, to manage such accusations when they nevertheless occur and to repair the legitimacy of the business when it...

Private security as moral drama: a tale of two scandals

ABSTRACT This article explores the phenomenon of scandals as they unfold in the private security industry. We begin by outlining our theoretical understanding of scandals, before tracking the key phases of two recent events – one in Sweden, the other in Britain. Scandals, we suggest, are best viewed as moral tales which dramatize a host of societal norms and values about private security and criminal justice, prompting a great deal of normative conflict. The wider point we draw from the analysis is that when market actors enter the field of policing and criminal justice, they not only re-shape that field, they are also re-shaped by it. Private security cannot, in other words, escape the moral dilemmas and conflicts that inescapably attend practices of policing and punishment.

Voluntary policing in Sweden: media reports of contemporary forms of police–citizen partnerships

ABSTRACT Many Western-style democracies have witnessed a general shift in the distribution of crime prevention responsibility, away from the state and increasingly to citizens themselves. Civil society is today more and more often called upon as an additional policing resource. This article explores the phenomenon of voluntary citizen participation in policing in Sweden, based on an analysis of 9280 news-media articles. One state-sanctioned (the Volunteers of the Police) and one autonomous civic (Missing People Sweden) initiative were examined, from their respective start until 2017, to understand the role played by police–citizen partnerships in the establishment and legitimation of voluntary policing forms in Sweden. A high degree of integration between police and volunteer work was found, enabling not only effective citizen participation, but also having an influence on police operations. The more effective and publicly visible the voluntary policing bodies were, the more pressure there was on the police to defend its legitimacy, ally itself with the volunteers and regulate the latter’s activities while holding them responsible for their actions. Arguably, however, with the police–citizen relationship being one of integration and mutual dependence, the division of labour and the accountability of both parties risk becoming blurred or even confused.

Cultural Images and Definitions of Homeless Women: Implications for Policy and Practice at the European Level

Chapter 3 focuses on how ideas about gender and homelessness impact on homelessness policies, services and the situation of homeless women in Europe. The power of culturally specific definitions and images of homelessness is significant. Access to homelessness services and chances of women exiting homelessness appear to be conditional upon the perceived conduct of women in many European countries. The design and organization of services for homeless women, which are to a large extent based on gendered stereotypes, may serve to alienate women. There is a need for a European-wide research on homelessness and housing services for women that is participatory in orientation and privileges women’s experiences, to develop services that respect the autonomy and dignity of women. Equally, there is a need for policies that focus on women’s access to affordable housing and socio-economic opportunities and their rights, more broadly.