Tear Gas, Alarms, and Bulletproof Windows: Taxi Violence and Situational Crime Prevention in Post-war Sweden

• In Event: Protection and Prevention in the Governance of Crime: Historical Perspectives from Sweden and Britain

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss an instance of an implementation of what today would be called situational crime prevention in an era which policy-wise was dominated by penal welfare. I will thus highlight how, and under which circumstances different kinds of crime prevention coexist in specific historical contexts.

In Sweden in the 1940s and 1950s violence against taxi drivers started to be seen as a serious problem which needed special attention. It was a symbol of a perceived rise in crime and of a society that was changing for the worse, as well as a phenomenon of crime which could, through better security and protection for the drivers, be prevented. Even though the violence wasn’t that frequent in actual numbers (25 assaults in a decade, resulting in 5 deaths) the safety of the taxi drivers gained considerable attention and around the problem a range of actors mobilized, proposing different kinds of crime prevention.

This paper first reconstructs how violence against taxi drivers was articulated as a specific problem of crime in the public debate during the 1940s and 1950s. Second, it traces the political process in which legislation for the protection of taxi drivers came into being, highlighting how the driver’s labour union, the association of taxi cab owners, the government, and the police represented different interests in the protection of taxi drivers. Third, it analyses the materiality of crime prevention by focusing on the tools and the technical solutions for the drivers’ safety, both those that came into being and those proposed by inventors, engineers, and an engaged public.

The case of violence against taxi drivers in post-war Sweden poses questions concerning responsibilization, the tension between public and private in crime prevention, and the role that materiality plays in the process of engaging a specific problem of crime.

Author

• Anders Pedersson, University of Gothenburg