The school's crime prevention mandate : A qualitative study of teachers' perspectives inrisk areas in Helsingborg

The aim of this study is to investigate how teachers work to prevent crime and to investigate how they interpret their crime prevention mandate. The study is based on Biesta's (2009) theory of what constitutes good education based on the three educational functions. The theory has been used to understand how teachers implement the crime prevention mandate in their work with students. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews to investigate in depth how officials interpret their mandate and how they implement the crime prevention mandate in their work with students. The school can be understood as the extended arm of the state when it comes to norm transfer and shaping the individual to become a part of society. The study examines how high school teachers in Helsingborg's socio-economically disadvantaged areas work on crime prevention. The study is delimited to study high school students because youths are overrepresented in statistics for firearm violence. Schools in risk areas are particularly interesting to investigate because the socio-economic challenges in the area affect the school and students. The results have shown that all interviewed teachers work with crime prevention through teaching and in building relationships with students. Crime prevention work has proven to be divided through collaboration and this is due to tensions in the division of responsibilities. Network management has proven to be lacking in some schools and more successful in others. Overall, this means that the school has a great responsibility in preventive work as a protective factor. The officials' mandate is an important part of the preventive work against gang crime.