"Ingen tänkande människa vill sätta barn i fängelse" - En WPR analys av Tidöpartiernas förslag om sänkning av straffbarhetsåldern och förslag om ungdomsfängelser

This study examines how repressive measures targeting minors have been legitimised in the political discourse during the Tidö Agreement period 2022–2025, with a particular focus on the introduction of youth detention facilities and proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility. The study analyses how youth crime is constructed as a political problem and how these constructions shape understandings of young people, criminality and responsibility. The analysis is based on the government official report SOU 2025:11, debate articles and press interviews with politicians. It employs Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach combined with a discourse analytical perspective by Michel Foucault. Rather than assessing the effectiveness of the proposed measures, the study focuses on problem representations, underlying assumptions, silences and the effects produced by these representations. The findings show that youth crime is predominantly represented as an urgent security threat closely linked to organised crime and societal disorder. Young offenders are constructed as risk-bearing subjects, which legitimises repressive interventions such as early criminal responsibility and custodial measures. Alternative representations that emphasise social, relational and structural factors are marginalised. The study concludes that these problem representations contribute to normalising repression as a necessary response to youth crime, while limiting the political space for preventive and welfare-oriented approaches.