Mid Sweden University

The purpose of this study is to acquire a profound understanding of the current criminal policy through an analysis of the political parties in the Swedish Parliament, namely the Social Democrats, the Moderate Party, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, the Center Party, the Left Party, and the Green Party. The focus lies on the parties' perspectives on crime and how these perspectives can be explained within the theoretical framework comprising strain theory and rational choice theory. Additionally, the aim is to identify the differences in their views. This will be accomplished through a qualitative text analysis, specifically employing a self-developed analytical framework based on these two theories. The development of this analytical framework stemmed from the need to efficiently work with the countless amount of text presented in each party's election manifesto. By utilizing the analytical framework, the emphasis was placed on causes and measures. In other words, how do the parties explain the causes of crime, what measures are proposed, and how can these causes and measures be linked to the respective strain theory or rational choice theory? The results of this study reveal intriguing differences concerning causes and measures. While the majority of the parties' explanations of crime align more closely with strain theory, the majority of their proposed measures bear closer resemblance to rational choice theory. This finding is supported by previous research in the field, which has observed a political shift regarding attitudes towards crime. There has been a transition from a social liberal perspective to a more restrictive perspective on criminality, characterized by a shift in focus from the victim to the offender.