Om ekonomiskt bistånd och kriminalitet - En studie om socialt stöd och dess effekter på misshandel och stöld

Abstract

Since criminality started to rise steeply in most western welfare states following the second world war the relationship between welfare support and criminality has been debated. For a period of time thought to be an effective preventive measure against crime welfare support has since from time to time come to be seen by some as ineffective and in some cases even as a contributing factor to the rise in crime. It remains a contested issue as new theories, such as social support theory, which is employed here, attempt to contribute to the understanding of what effects general welfare has on overall crime levels. As a connection which is relatively well-researched in the USA, altough still not yet fully understood, this study strives toward a better understanding by testing the relationship in a swedish context. The relationship might not function in the same way considering that the US is a fundamentally different welfare-regime than Sweden, liberal and social-democratic respectively. Untangling the relationship is attempted by employing a multivariate regressionanalysis on a crosssectional dataset consisting of data from 2012 covering 247 of Swedens total of 290 municipalities. The dependent variables consists of data for the total number of reported instances of; (1) aggravated assault and; (2) larceny and shoplifting. The main independent variable in turn consists of the municipalities average welfare payments per household and year. The theoretical framework is further defined by categorizing the crimes as either affective or material with regards to their envisaged motivations.