The significance of context and victim–offender relationship for Swedish social workers’ understandings of young men’s violent victimization

Abstract

This article investigates how social workers’ interpretations of contextual factors and the relationship between victim and offender affect their understanding and assessment of male violent victimization. The study was designed as a multiple case study with a qualitative comparative approach. Focus group interviews supported by vignettes were used to collect data. Interviews were carried out with professional Swedish social workers working with victimized men and women at support units for young crime victims in Sweden. The results show that the social workers consider the violence that the young men are subjected to in cases of street violence and interpersonal violence to be unavoidable or even ‘natural’. The violence was in some cases considered to be dependent on the men’s own agency and in others on their lack of agency, when displaying traits of both more traditional and less traditional forms of masculinity respectively. The social workers’ talk about young male crime victims is interpreted as contributing to making the men appear as less legitimate victims. Even though the social workers argued that the victims’ own behaviour should not lead to any special considerations concerning help efforts, the possibility of upholding such a demarcation between explanations ascribed to the violent incident and help measures offered is problematized in the article.

Some Die Young: A Follow-Up Study of Young Men Exposed to Violence in Sweden

“…On the other hand, the law explicitly says that social services should consider the need to support women exposed to violence, saying nothing about men, which may be viewed as a form of gender discrimination. A study based on focus group interviews with social workers suggested that the violence to which young men are subjected in cases of street violence and interpersonal violence almost seems unavoidable or even "natural" (Skillmark & Kullberg, 2019). The authors concluded that social workers' attitudes toward young male crime victims may contribute to making these men appear to be less legitimate victims.…”