This study examines how respondents to the consultation on Ds 2024:26 frame the need for reform of compulsory youth care provided by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (SiS). The study focuses on how problems, causes and solutions are formulated and what similarities and differences emerge between public bodies and professional and knowledge-based organisations on the one hand, and civil-society and child-rights organisations on the other.

The study is based on a qualitative text analysis of 25 consultation responses containing substantive comments. Jönson’s (2010) perspective analysis of social problems is used with a discourse-analytic orientation. The findings are further interpreted through a sociological neo-institutional perspective on institutional demands and legitimacy.

The results show broad agreement that SiS faces problems requiring change, but differences in how these problems are understood and which reforms are considered legitimate. Three recurring problem perspectives emerge: children’s rights and legal safeguards, safety and security, and governance and capacity. The clearest difference concerns expanded coercive powers. Several public bodies and professional and knowledge-based organisations present these as necessary or useful security measures, whereas civil-society and child-rights organisations more often emphasise staffing, relationships, care and preventive work.

The study concludes that reforming SiS concerns not only coercive powers but also competing institutional demands and expectations related to the legitimacy and future direction of compulsory youth care.