"Who Wants to Be Called a Perpetrator?" : A Qualitative Study of Social Services´Complex Work with Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence is currently a major social problem in society. Existing research often highlights victims of violence and their situations, whereas research on perpetrators of violence remains limited. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to examine how the social services work with male perpetrators of violence considering the new Swedish Social Services Act (2025:400). The theoretical framework of the study is street-level bureaucracy and discretion. The study is based on a qualitative research design in which semi-structured interviews were used to collect data that can address the study´s aim and research questions. The collected data were transcribed after the interviews were conducted and subsequently analyzed through a thematic content analysis, in which the following themes were identified: the perpetrator's capacity for change, organization and case processing, collaboration, and young people's relationships and risk factors. The main finding of the study is that the social service's work with perpetrators of violence is complex. Preventive work with perpetrators is considered particularly complex, as social workers do not believe they have sufficient and/or appropriate resources to engage in effective preventive interventions with perpetrators of violence.