Risk and protective factors among young people in relation to criminality : A literature study on the impact of risk and protective factors and the preventive work that is carried out

The purpose of the study is to find relevant risk and protective factors within social services to prevent crime among Swedish youth. The method we used for answering the questions in the study and the purpose of it was to use articles and reports. The results from the sources were obtained via the databases Swepub, Google scholar, and Libsearch. The study points out that young people between the ages of 15 and 20 make up the largest group of suspected persons who have committed criminal acts. This means that the available resources must be given the greatest importance to this social group to prevent criminality and also help the young people who have already found themselves in a criminal situation to get out of it. Our results show that there are efforts available within the social services for this and that there is general agreement between them that the work should be done methodically. Our results also show that the risk factors for developing norm-breaking behavior are several and an example of this is the socioeconomic status of the youth’s parents. Other results are that the risk factors for ending up in crime are low self-control, alcohol consumption, and drug use as individual risk factors. The same goes for parental neglect and antisocial companionship. Furthermore, this also applies to criminogenic neighborhoods, which are an environment-related risk factor. A further similarity is that the sources show that in many cases risk factors are multiple and that young people who commit criminal acts can generally have more antisocial behavior and have character traits that are generally described as: older, having a single parent, poorer self-control, more frequent use of alcohol and drugs, a mother with poorer nursing skills, a larger anti-social network of friends who also live in a crime-ridden neighborhood. A further observation during the work is that, although efforts have been found to counter crime, very few sources have focused on protective factors in their articles. Instead, the focus has been on the risk factors themselves. This is not the least interesting as a criminal debut cannot only be prevented by reducing risk factors, but also by ensuring that there are protective factors. At the same time, the cause of the norm-breaking behavior is complex and there is no clear answer to it.