Lea Cecilie Brinkgaard

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Current research

In my PhD-project, Youth Without Crime: Punishment and Welfare in Denmark, 1970-2020, I study how young lawbreakers and juvenile crime have been understood, conceptualized and managed in Denmark from 1970 until today. The aim is to deliver a novel historical analysis of how understandings and handlings of juvenile crime relate to changes and continuities within the social and penal domains of the Danish welfare state.

Juvenile crime has attracted particular attention for centuries, but the ideals and visions on how to contain and control it have changed over time. The view on children and young people’s offenses has since the Children’s Act of 1905 been characterized by a balance between social and punitive policies and practices. The weight between the two principles, however, has varied ever since. This project will study how the balance between social and penal domains has developed in Denmark from 1970 up until today and, furthermore, how these changes have influenced perceptions of youth crime.

Supervisor: Associate professor, Søren Rud. The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Co-supervisor: Professor, Peter Scharff Smith, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo. 

Primary fields of research

• Understandings of crime and punishment
• Youth crime
• Welfare state
• 'Nordic Exceptionalism'
• Neoliberalism
• Social and penal policy