Bör sexköpslagen skärpas? En diskursanalys om straffpåföljden för sexköp.

Abstract

The penalty of the Sex Purchase Act has almost exclusively resulted in fines for the accused perpetrator since it came into force in 1999. This despite that prison has always existed as an alternative sentencing. This study aims to examine the reason to the current situation by analysing the discourse surrounding the penalty of the Sex Purchase Act.

A qualitative document analysis has been chosen as the approach for the thesis in a form of a critical discourse analysis. The discourse of the empirical material, which consists of preliminary work of the Sex Purchase Act and other governmental documents that discuss the penalty of sex purchase, are analysed through a radical feminist and gender theoretical framework.

This study shows that the discourse surrounding the penalty of the Sex Purchase Act has shifted over time. From the beginning, focus has been mainly on the sex-selling woman, to more recently, the focus has been turned to the sex-buyer. The results show that the radical feminist view has been successful in changing the narrative on the sex trade, which resulted in a more serious discourse surrounding the crime of sex purchase and thus led to an increase in the penalty rate. However, the increase in the penalty has still not led to a higher sentencing, which shows work still needs to be done in order to make the justice system aligned both with the original intensions of the Sex Purchase Act as well as with the current discourse of considering sex purchase more and more as a serious crime in the eyes of the public.