Sara Uhnoo

Trials of loyalty: Ethnic minority police officers as ‘outsiders’ within a greedy institution

In this article we interrogate how ethnicity interfaces with the police culture in a major Swedish police force. While addressing administrative levels, in particular police security officers’ screening of new recruits, we focus on the role that loyalty plays in defining how ethnicity interacts with mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion in the structures of rank-and-file police culture. The police authorities, perceived as ‘greedy institutions’, demand and enforce exclusive loyalty. We argue that ethnic minority officers are rigorously tested as regards their loyalty to their fellow officers and to the police organization, and the demands made on their undivided loyalty and the misgivings as to their unstinting loyalty act as barriers to inclusion in the organization.

Within ‘the Tin Bubble’: the police and ethnic minorities in Sweden

How can discriminatory treatment along perceived ethnic lines become reproduced within a discursive climate that claims to support ethnic diversity and condemn racism? Through an analysis of interviews with 21 current and former employees of the Swedish Police who identified their background as ‘foreign’, this article investigates how certain language use and specific talk can be reproduced in spite of the internal and external criticism directed at them. Six different, institutionally available accounts resorted to by the interviewees to make sense of and legitimise the derogatory language and joking they encountered at work are examined, shedding light on how the use of derogatory language, slurs, and degrading humour about ethnic minorities can remain commonplace within the police force without becoming considered as especially problematic. In addition, the analysis shows that which takes place within the polices own ‘Tin Bubble’, or in the police car, canteen, and lunchroom, to potentially have a carryover effect from one context to the other, colouring police interactions with the public and adversely affecting the workplace satisfaction of police employees coming from minority backgrounds.

Juvenile school firesetting in Sweden: causes and countermeasures

Deliberately set school fires cause significant economic, material, and social damage to society. This article aims to contribute to a sociological understanding and explanation of school fires set by juveniles and to the development of effective prevention strategies based on the results obtained. The study draws upon comprehensive empirical data from qualitative and quantitative research consisting of a questionnaire survey, substantive interviews, and document analysis. The findings show firesetting to be a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, which calls for a diversified approach to prevention relying on structural, situational, and social interventions. While juveniles setting schools on fire appear in many respects to be similar to other youths engaged in delinquent behaviours in society, the fires they set can be internally categorized according to firesetting motive, offender characteristics, and modus operandi. The implications of the resulting typology of six main types of school fires for prevention work are discussed, with practical suggestions for effective countermeasures offered.

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.

Starting a fire together: The dynamics of co-offending in juvenile arson

Criminology has an incomplete and imprecise understanding of the qualitative aspects of juvenile co-offending. This article explores one type of juvenile crime, namely arson. Using publicly available judicial records, it analyses 60 cases of fire-setting in Sweden in which there were two or more perpetrators aged under 21 acting jointly. The resulting categorization shows the social organization of juvenile fire-setting to be centred around nine different positions that a young person can take during the planning, preparation and commission phase of an arson offence. The findings highlight the usefulness of bringing together criminological research on co-offending and juvenile fire-setting to better understand the dynamics driving and facilitating youth arson and group aspects of youth delinquency and crime more generally.

Juvenile firesetting in schools

This article examines why, and under what circumstances, young people illegally set fire to schools. Utilizing court and police records from cases of illegal firesetting in Swedish schools where offenders were aged 21 or younger, a number of crime scene and offender characteristics are compiled and analysed using correspondence analysis. First, four main clusters of such characteristics are identified. Next, offenders’ accounts of their motives are examined and factored in, with a total of six different types of school fires identified as a result: obstructing school activities, destroying evidence of school burglary, play vandalism, vindictive vandalism, psychiatric problems and school fire as a side effect. The types of school fires obtained are then classified into two main groups: school fires related to education and school fires unrelated to education. The findings show illegal firesetting in schools to be a much more complex phenomenon than previously recognized, and that accounts of motives can help us better understand this complexity and to develop apropriate preventive measures.