Mellan straffets logik och barnets skydd : En diskursanalytisk studie av rättslig legitimitet i diskursen om sänkt straffbarhetsålder

Sammanfattning

This study examines how notions of legal legitimacy are constructed in the Swedish debate on lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13 years. Through a discourse analysis of the government’s legislative proposal and responses from referral bodies, the study explores how criminal justice problems are framed, how proposed solutions are legitimized, and how different actors and subjects are represented. This approach enables an analysis of how institutional processes contribute to defining and producing legal legitimacy. The theoretical framework draws on Michel Foucault’s concepts of power and knowledge, Carol Lee Bacchi’s WPR approach, Bernard E. Harcourt’s penal rationalities, and Sara Ahmed’s theory of affective economies. The findings reveal a conflict between two competing rationalities. The government’s proposal is grounded in a security- and control-oriented rationality, portraying youth crime as an exceptional social threat requiring punitive responses and positioning children as responsible and potentially dangerous subjects. In contrast, most referral bodies advocate a welfare-oriented rationality, emphasizing research, evidence-based knowledge, and social interventions while portraying children as socially vulnerable and in need of support. The study concludes that the proposal represents a shift away from the traditional Nordic welfare model. By redefining what constitutes a legitimate response to crime, it moves the focus from social prevention toward state control, thereby reshaping the boundaries of state responsibility and the purpose of criminal justice policy.