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The knowledge base of Swedish criminal policy: The case of smuggling and illegal selling of alcohol in the mid-19th century
Thu, September 12, 8:00 to 9:15am, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, Floor: 2nd floor, Room 3.04Abstract
In a recently started project, the use of criminal policy knowledge in Sweden will be investigated during the years 1853–2024. The aim is, firstly, to investigate what knowledge our national politicians have claimed when discussing criminal policy issues, if and how this has changed over time and, secondly, to thereby contribute with a historical perspective on current criminal policy and criminology. The project will amongst other things ask questions about the relationship between knowledge use and penal tendencies and how this has developed over time.
As a first case study from the project, an investigation of smuggling and illegal selling of alcohol during the years 1853–1876 will be presented. Results from this study suggests that smuggling and speakeasies primarily where considered a supply problem, as opposed to the demand framing of the alcohol problem some decades later but very much like how the drug problem was presented a century later. The knowledge legitimising the political problem description and suggestions for solutions were to some extent based on external sources of knowledge production, professional knowledge and some statistics, but more often on personal anecdotal knowledge and logical conclusions as well as a profound engagement with the MP’s constituencies from which local knowledge of the problem was drawn.
The results from the first case study will, together with results from the studies to come, form the empirical basis for a discussion of the historical development of themes discussed as relatively novel phenomena in today’s crime policy and criminological debate, such as increased politicization, research resistance, emotional arguments, crime victim focus and populism, repression and harsher punishments.