The role and responsibility of street-level bureaucrats in crime preventive work : A study on small municipalities in northern Sweden

The role and responsibility of street-level bureaucrats in crime preventive work – a study on small municipalities in northern Sweden This paper in the form of a qualitative research study set out to explore crime preventive work in rural municipalities in northern Sweden, through the eyes of street-level bureaucrats working in the specific context. Research suggest that top-down national crime prevention policies traditionally have focused on big-city problems while at the same time neglecting the special circumstances under which sparsely populated and rural municipalities operates under. In small municipalities the tasks of managing and coordinating crime preventive work is often delegated to a variety of different functions such as social workers, security coordinators and middle managers. How do they carry out crime preventive work, and what role do these municipal coordinators play in implementing the new, national policy on crime prevention in Sweden? While functioning as coordinators on crime preventive work among their day-to-day duties imposes a certain set of challenges, it also creates possibilities as rural areas often are associated with strong social links and networks. By adding a political science dimension using a theoretical framework on implementation of collaborative governance, network theory and Lipskys (2010) street- level bureaucrats, this study aims to shed light on these coordinators and their various conditions to carry out a structured and long-term crime preventive work