Children´s and young people´s images of the police

                   - a study in two local contexts

Abstract

This licentiate thesis focuses on children´s and young people´s images of the police. The aim is to describe and analyze these images and place them in late modernity. The starting point is taken in a notion that images are socially constructed, based on structures of power, habitus, social positions and a symbolic capital. To understand the importance of what meaning young people put into the police, the approach also is influenced by cultural sociology.

Data were collected through a questionnaire to 1 945 children and young people, aged 10-22 years with no specific criminal experiences, in two local contexts; Karlskrona and Landskrona, two municipalities in the Southern part of Sweden. Conversational interviews were conducted in group sessions with in all 50 children and young people. The quantitative material, processed in SPSS, is used in a descriptive manner. For the interviews, a thematic analysis method was used. Regarding the participants’ images three main themes emerged; conceptions, experiences and expectations.

Findings show that these children and young people have positive thoughts about the police as an institution but are to some extent more critical with regard to the police as an organization and far more critical when it comes to individual police officers. Almost all the participants have been in contact with police officers, mostly in school or when they have applied for a passport. Regarding expectations they want the police to focus their efforts on adults.  The children, aged 10-12, are more positive about the police while the group of 13-16 year olds are more negative. To some extent the older group, aged 17-22, are more differentiated.

Furthermore, it appears that conceptions, experiences and expectations are closely linked. Conceptions are based on various experiences, which in turn generate various expectations in light of different circumstances in life. Some images are more generally occurring while others mainly are produced in groups of young people. Young people´s images can be interpreted as a struggle within the field where the habitus and symbolic capital constitutes a force. If we choose to look at young people as seismographs, their images can be signs of images of the police even among adults. Ultimately it turns out that there seems to be a mystique surrounding the police. For people it is exciting to see the police in action in real life while the police themselves are secretive about how they operate; which also may contribute to the images we create. And in this study it appears not to be differences worth mentioning between the two local contexts.