NCJ Number
184153
Journal
Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Dated: 2000 Pages: 56-72
Date Published
2000
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article compares the Swedish public's belief that juvenile violence is increasing with systematic criminological data from crime statistics and other sources related to this issue.
Abstract
Data on juvenile crime were collected from police and court statistics, as well as from victimization studies and cause-of-death statistics. Although police and court statistics over the last 15 years in Sweden show an increase in juvenile violent offenses, data from the alternative data sets do not support this increase. This suggests that the increase in juvenile violence reflected in official police and court statistics can be attributed to changes in the public's and the authorities' responses to juvenile violence. This article examines why almost everyone in Sweden believes that juvenile violence is on the increase even given a lack of hard empirical evidence. Some of the factors identified are various forms of intolerance to deviations from the norm; media focus on exceptionally brutal and incomprehensible acts of violence that involve juveniles, without reference to the rarity of such events; more aggressive crime policy; and the incorporation of female anti-violence values within the system of societal norms. 11 figures and 64 references