The Emergence of the Crime Victim: Sweden in a Scandinavian Context

Why Crime Rates Are Falling throughout the Western World

“…Since the late 1990s, sexual offenses in Scandinavian countries have received steadily increasing political and ideological attention (Skilbrei andHolmströ m 2011, 2013). In both political debates and the media, crime discourse in Scandinavia is increasingly victimcentered and moralistic (Tham et al 2011). The recent emphases on victims and on sexual offenses may have made victims and police more sensitive than in earlier times to minor kinds of invasive behavior, citizens more likely to perceive incidents as assaultive when answering victimization surveys and to report incidents to the police, and police more likely to treat them as offenses.…”

“…It is difficult, for example, not to hypothesize that all three mechanisms are major causes of recent increases in rates of sexual offending and assaults in official data in the Scandinavian countries (Selmini and McElrath 2014). Sexual crimes are the targets of major social and political movements there and the subjects of important changes in criminal laws and practices (Skilbrei andHolmströ m 2011, 2013;Tham, Rö nneling, and Rytterbro 2011). It would be astonishing if those initiatives had no effects on cultural attitudes, victim behavior, and police policies and practices.…”

Criminological Lessons on/from Sexual Violence

“…From the early 1980s onwards, calls were made for more and harsher laws on violence against women in Sweden (Lappi-Seppälä, 2012). Henrik Tham and colleagues (Tham, Rönneling and Rytterbro, 2011) have looked at the apparent paradox of Sweden, which is, on many counts, considered a country less punitive than most Western countries, something which makes it part of what is analysed as Nordic exceptionalism to the punitive populism going on elsewhere (see, e.g. Pratt, 2008).…”

“…Pratt, 2008). Yet, in Sweden, sexual violence is addressed in a way that seems to make it an exception to the exception (Tham, Rönneling and Rytterbro, 2011). Laws on sexual violence and gendered harms have multiplied since the late 1990s, thresholds for what is criminalised has been lowered, and punishments have become harsher.…”

Purity or danger? The establishment of sex trafficking as a social problem in Sweden

“…When crime in general is discussed in the Swedish political debate, the crime victim has been the focal point of the debate and this has clearly had an effect on Swedish legislation. Men's violence against women constitutes a central theme in the crime victim discourse (Tham et al, 2011). Violence against women is generally understood as being the consequence of a social power structure in which women are subordinate to men.…”