Paper presented at IASSW Conference Global Social Work 2006, Santiago Chile

Den här rapporten handlar om polisers handlingsutrymme när socialtjänsten begärt handräckning av polisen för att tvångsomhänderta barn eller missbrukare. Detta är svåra situationer då det är en maktutövning som måste hanteras med varsamhet i förhållande till den som skall omhändertas.

Rapporten bygger på intervjuer med poliser och socialarbetare och visar hur lagstiftning och organisation sätter de yttre ramarna för handlingsutrymmet. Utifrån konkreta handräckningssituationer beskrivs hur de olika kompetenserna från de två yrkesgrupperna läggs samman. De intervjuade uttalar en ömsesidig respekt för varandras kunskapsområden.

This report is about the co-operation between the police and the social services in the specific situation when the social services apply for assistance for taking children and drug-abusers in to involuntary care immediately. The police have an authority to use violence that social workers do not have. Therefore social workers need the police to accomplish this task. The report aims to reach a deeper understanding for how the polices' discretion is used in the situations when the police assist the social services to have children or drug abusers taken immediately in to care.

This report comes from a study that is based on focus-group interviews and individual interviews with police officers and social workers from two districts in the south of Sweden. Eleven interviews have been conducted with thirty-two informants. All interviews were recorded and later transcribed in to text. In the analysis and interpretation of the texts, three aspects have been in focus: the legislation, the organisational conditions and the specific discretions for police and social worker. The theoretical perspective focuses on the relation between individuals and society through governmental organisations and the role and discretion of civil servants.

The results show complex situations handled by the police and social worker in co-operation with respect for each other's competence and for the user. In the specific situations the roles for the actors are clear. Discretions are first defined by the legislation, then by the organisational aspects and in concrete action the actors experience based knowledge and personal features govern how the given discretion will be used and thereby what actions will be taken.

Our main aim is to understand the phenomena coersion by regarding how it is created and maintained durien coersive care of drug abusers in Sweden. In this article we follow processes through coercive care by stories from social workers and clients. 23 interviews were conducted with 13 social workers in the social services and 10 personen who have been under coercive care. The material derives from two parallel studies wher the social services work has been in focus. The interviewees' stories elucidate actions and interaction throughout the coercive care. hereby they describe a process where the drug user first is transformed from a subject to an object. When the care continues in to volontary treatment the objectification of the drug user seases and turns into a re-subjectification, where the disciplined can regain influence on his life, but this time as disciplined. We argue that coersion is productive since it produces chhanged identitites.