Meditate at crime : - A study based on shopkeeper´s view on shoplifting, committers and punishment

ABSTRACT Juvenile is a phenomena that more or less always has been around in our societies. From a society perspective, a crime is committed if actions that the legislative power of state consider as unacceptable or actions that are punishable. There is no particular explanation to why certain people become criminal; crime can be caused by many different factors at the same time. There are several types of justice. In this essay, it is reparative justice for shoplifting in force, that will be illustrated. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the shopkeepers experience incidents such as shoplifting or theft in their stores, and how they will react and act if they will be exposed by circumstances like that. In Sweden, a new law of mediation will be introduced 1/1 2008. After that date will all youth between age 15 and 21 will be offered mediation at crime. Due to that, it will also be illustrated what opinion the shopkeepers have about mediation at crime. Also, their attitude towards participating in a mediation process when their stores have been exposed to shoplifting will be illustrated. The research method is qualitative. The empiric data collections have been conducted thru interviews done on site. The interviews have been carried out with 10 different shopkeepers, five from cities and five from smaller villages. This investigation shows that stores frequently meet with shoplifting. Many of these crimes are committed by youth, but far from all. Several of the shopkeepers point out that the present limit of 800:- SEK between shoplifting and theft is way too high. Unless the shopkeepers find themselves have time and resources to report crimes such as shoplifting to the police, they will do that. The shopkeepers who have been interviewed think that mediation at crime is crime preventive to youth and first time shoplifters. Mediation at crime is also a course of action that most of the shopkeepers show willing to do. They, who do not show willing to mediation at crime, think they already have wasted so much time on shoplifters and police interrogations that they do not want to and spend more time on the committer