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This study explores the role of immigration and racialization in creating the first Swedish victim support centre in the early 1980s. The study is based on a qualitative content analysis of the archives of Victim Support Södertälje, the first lasting Swedish victim support centre, from 1983 to 1990. While many of the centre’s activities focused on crime prevention, it defined crime and victimization as the province of immigrant communities in Södertälje, and, notably, as outside—and aberrant from—the imagined racial community of Sweden. Thus, victim support centres were one of the mechanisms to continue to defend the ideals of the Swedish welfare state, but to do so in ways that prevented incursions within Swedish racial homogeneity from the outside.

The aim of this article was to develop the understanding of discretion in compulsory care for youth and the influence of emotional aspects in developing a collective discretionary practice. The empirical material consists of group interviews with staff at these institutions. The theoretical concepts of emotional labour and emotional energy are used to understand discretion and face-to-face interaction in this specific setting. The results show how the staff navigate between rigidity and flexibility in order to uphold institutional rules, whilst also being able to meet youths’ different needs in specific situations in a personal, yet not private, manner. Professionalism is understood as providing a caring distance, in other words, a temporary emotional involvement with the youth. The staffs’ reasoning and understanding of their work show how to manage emotional labour in a setting where the youth can be seen as both dangerous and vulnerable. The emotional energy is primarily connected to the long-lasting relation amongst staff and not to the youth, and hence, it is of primary importance to form a shared collective discretionary practice.

This article aims to describe and analyse the policy work by Sweden’s largest victim support organization – the Swedish Association for Victim Support (BOJ) – in the area of violence against women....

This article focuses on the interdependence between the state and Sweden’s largest non-governmental victim support umbrella organization, Victim Support Sweden (VSS). In particular, it examines how government funding of VSS has developed since the end of the 1980s. Based on a qualitative analysis of government bills and VSS’s annual reports, the article gives a detailed account of how a non-governmental organization and the state are interconnected in a complementary relationship. The results show that VSS has differentiated itself from the state and government agencies by defining its victim support volunteers as ‘fellow human beings’. The state and VSS have, however, always been interdependent, which blurs the line between the two. VSS has relied on government grants, while the state has leaned on VSS for victim support. In addition, many of VSS’s local victim support centers have signed cooperation agreements with municipalities, which may give municipalities greater control over the centers’ work.

The aim of this study is to understand how a new nationwide nonprofit organization, Victim Support Sweden (VSS), emerged in just a few years without public or political demand. In this qualitative study, we reconstruct and follow the first years of the organization. The study is based on a content analysis of VSS’s archival documents from 1988 to 1992 and retrospective interviews with key persons. The results acknowledge the power of entrepreneurs in establishing the organization. The entrepreneurs used their skills, engagement, and backgrounds to “make sense” of the organization, even though there were no crime victims calling for support. They combined logics from adjacent fields and created a specific new “victim support logic.” Thereafter, the logic spread quickly through the entrepreneurs’ lobbying of politicians and education of local victim support volunteers.

Manniskor och organisationer ar i blickfanget i den har antologin. I socialt arbete och andra organiserade valfardsinsatser forenas de tva i vad vi har kallar ett aktorskap. Individerna samspelar med de strukturer som kallas organisationer, utifran en yrkesroll eller till och med som en yrkeskar, en profession. Organisationen bjuder bildligt talat upp individen till dans. Eller ar det tvartom? Relationen mellan individen och organisationen behover standigt belysas. Det rader ett omsesidigt forhallande dar organisationen formar yrkesrollen och manniskan med sin kunskap och sin erfarenhet formar organisationen. Har har professionernas specifika och samlade kunskap stor betydelse. Var ambition har ar att bidra till en rik analys genom att anlagga olika perspektiv pa valfardsarbete, av olika professioner i olika organisationer. Vi vill lyfta fram skarningspunkterna dar manniskor gor nagot, eller later bli att gora nagot. I tio kapitel undersoker femton forskare olika aspekter av praktiken i valfardsorganisationer. Antologins forfattare har gatt nara och in i valfardsorganisationernas och dess aktorers praktiker. Med stod i olika teoretiska perspektiv analyseras forutsattningar, uppfattningar och vardagen for manniskor som arbetar i dessa organisationer. Alla kapitel bygger pa empiriska underlag, fran offentliga organisationer, ideella organisationer eller privata aktorer.

En ideal bild av en aktor visar pa sjalvstandighet och kontroll. For organisationer i det civila samhallet ar fragorna om beroende och oberoende standigt brannande. Ett nytt krav pa en ”effektrapport” vacker mycken tankemoda. Ska den ideburna verksamheten borja ”mata en massa saker” i stallet for att ”jobba, jobba!”?Kapitlet redovisar en studie som stracker sig over fem ar om inforandet av en redovisningsprocedur i en ideburen organisation.

Manniskor och organisationer ar i blickfanget i den har antologin. I socialt arbete och andra organiserade valfardsinsatser forenas de tva i vad vi har kallar ett aktorskap. Individerna samspelar med de strukturer som kallas organisationer, utifran en yrkesroll eller till och med som en yrkeskar, en profession. Organisationen bjuder bildligt talat upp individen till dans. Eller ar det tvartom? Relationen mellan individen och organisationen behover standigt belysas. Det rader ett omsesidigt forhallande dar organisationen formar yrkesrollen och manniskan med sin kunskap och sin erfarenhet formar organisationen. Har har professionernas specifika och samlade kunskap stor betydelse. Var ambition har ar att bidra till en rik analys genom att anlagga olika perspektiv pa valfardsarbete, av olika professioner i olika organisationer. Vi vill lyfta fram skarningspunkterna dar manniskor gor nagot, eller later bli att gora nagot. I tio kapitel undersoker femton forskare olika aspekter av praktiken i valfardsorganisationer. Antologins forfattare har gatt nara och in i valfardsorganisationernas och dess aktorers praktiker. Med stod i olika teoretiska perspektiv analyseras forutsattningar, uppfattningar och vardagen for manniskor som arbetar i dessa organisationer. Alla kapitel bygger pa empiriska underlag, fran offentliga organisationer, ideella organisationer eller privata aktorer.

This article analyses and discusses standardisation in human service organisations and its implications for professionals and for professionalism in social work. The theoretical framework derives from neo-institutional theory and theories regarding professionalism. By highlighting the role of professionals within a field influenced by organisational demands and market endeavour, this article contributes to the understanding of increased standardisation as a way to reduce uncertainty and enhance legitimacy for human service organisations, but at the expense of traditional professional discretion. This development has been interpreted as de-professionalisation and as an adjustment to organisational demands. It could also be seen as a professional strategy to strengthen professional trust and provide a sense of certainty for professionals. It can also lead to professional uncertainty about how to handle the discretion in the light of standardised tools. This development might, depending on the organisational...

The aim of this article is to unpack how the categories ‘gender’ and ‘age’ are understood among Swedish Victim Support organizations. This is done through a study of how individuals who work in Swedish Victim Support organizations talk about victims as well as about their own role. In an analysis of 12 focus groups from Swedish Victim Support organizations, where one part was based on vignettes and the other part on open discussion, we focus on how the supporters understand gender and age. By working with three categorical pairs – victim and supporter, male and female as well as young and old – we show that gender is a dominant categorization in understanding both victims and victim supporters. Age seemed to have more importance in how women are understood, as female victims were described quite differently depending on age, and the ideal helper was described as a mature woman. Male helpers were regarded as a homogenous group and age did not matter. Conclusively, we found that, while gender as a category was important in the understanding of how people are perceived in Victim Support, the intersection of the categories of gender and age were important in supporting and enhancing this understanding. This article points at the importance of understanding how these specific categories work.

Nanostructured and microstructured thin foils have been fabricated and used experimentally as targets to manipulate the spatial profile of proton bunches accelerated through the interaction with high intensity laser pulses (6×10^{19} W/cm^{2}). Monolayers of polystyrene nanospheres were placed on the rear surfaces of thin plastic targets to improve the spatial homogeneity of the accelerated proton beams. Moreover, thin targets with grating structures of various configurations on their rear sides were used to modify the proton beam divergence. Experimental results are presented, discussed, and supported by 3D particle-in-cell numerical simulations.

Previous studies of the causative agent of tularaemia, Francisella tularensis have identified phylogeographic patterns suggestive of environmental maintenance reservoirs. To investigate the phyloge ...

The Swedish Prison and Probation Service has been influenced by the ‘What Works’ agenda since the late 1990's and an orientation towards risk and risk management has gradually become visible in the organization. But there is, within the probation service, a discrepancy between two types of logics — an organizational logic and a professional logic. Although guidelines prescribe the use of risk-assessment tools, they are in reality seldom used by practitioners. Through an examination of the reasons given by the probation officers who expressed doubts or concerns about the risk-concept, we question whether this could be seen as signs of resistance based on professional logic.

Transmission sites of specific Francisella tularensis genotypes were highly localized during natural outbreaks of human tularemia., Summer outbreaks of tularemia that occurred from 1995 through 2005 in 2 locations in Sweden affected 441 persons. We performed an epidemiologic investigation of these outbreaks using a novel strategy, involving high-resolution genotyping of Francisella tularensis isolates obtained from 136 patients (using 18 genetic markers developed from 6 F. tularensis genome sequences) and interviews with the patients. Strong spatial associations were found between F. tularensis subpopulations and the places of disease transmission; infection by some subpopulations occurred within areas as small as 2 km2, indicating unidentified environmental point sources of tularemia. In both locations, disease clusters were associated with recreational areas beside water, and genetic subpopulations were present throughout the tularemia season and persisted over years. High-resolution genotyping in combination with patients’ statements about geographic places of disease transmission provided valuable indications of likely sources of infection and the causal genotypes during these tularemia outbreaks.

The aim of this article is to analyse how social workers in the social services describe crime victims and their role in support- ing these victims. Based on focus groups with social workers in the ...

Analysis of unidirectional genomic deletion events and single nucleotide variations suggested that the four subspecies of Francisella tularensis have evolved by vertical descent. The analysis indicated an evolutionary scenario where the highly virulent F. tularensis subsp. tularensis (type A) appeared before the less virulent F. tularensis subsp. holarctica (type B). Compared to their virulent progenitors, attenuated strains of F. tularensis exhibited specific unidirectional gene losses.

Francisella tularensis is one of the most infectious human pathogens known. In the past, both the former Soviet Union and the US had programs to develop weapons containing the bacterium. We report the complete genome sequence of a highly virulent isolate of F. tularensis (1,892,819 bp). The sequence uncovers previously uncharacterized genes encoding type IV pili, a surface polysaccharide and iron-acquisition systems. Several virulence-associated genes were located in a putative pathogenicity island, which was duplicated in the genome. More than 10% of the putative coding sequences contained insertion-deletion or substitution mutations and seemed to be deteriorating. The genome is rich in IS elements, including IS630 Tc-1 mariner family transposons, which are not expected in a prokaryote. We used a computational method for predicting metabolic pathways and found an unexpectedly high proportion of disrupted pathways, explaining the fastidious nutritional requirements of the bacterium. The loss of biosynthetic pathways indicates that F. tularensis is an obligate host-dependent bacterium in its natural life cycle. Our results have implications for our understanding of how highly virulent human pathogens evolve and will expedite strategies to combat them.

Subsets of glycoproteins are thought to require lectin-like membrane receptors for efficient export out of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). To identify new members related to two previously characterized intracellular lectins ERGIC-53/p58 and VIP36, we carried out an extensive database search using the conserved carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) as a search string. A gene, more closely related to VIP36 than to ERGIC-53/p58, and hence called VIPL (VIP36-Like), was identified. VIPL has been conserved through evolution from zebra fish to man. The 2.4-kb VIPL mRNA was widely expressed to varying levels in different tissues. Using an antiserum prepared against the CRD, the 32-kDa VIPL protein was detected in various cell lines. The single N-linked glycan of VIPL remained endoglycosidase H-sensitive during a 2-h pulse-chase, even when the protein was overexpressed or mutated to allow export to the plasma membrane. VIPL localized primarily to the ER and partly to the Golgi complex. Like VIP36, the cytoplasmic tail of VIPL terminates in the sequence KRFY, a motif characteristic for proteins recycling between the ER and ERGIC/cis-Golgi. Mutating the retrograde transport signal KR to AA resulted in transport of VIPL to the cell surface. Finally, knock-down of VIPL mRNA using siRNA significantly slowed down the secretion of two glycoproteins (MR 35 and 250 kDa) to the medium, suggesting that VIPL may also function as an ER export receptor.

In this article the caring power in the Swedish probation service is discussed. By exploring the history of probation, formed since the early 19 {\rm ^{th}} century, the structure that is constructed through human interaction and that defines the role of helper and helped is shown. Within this structure, different interpretations exist and different stories are told. This variation is highlighted through stories of support and control, told by social workers and clients. The purpose is to show that different aspects occur in different relationships, and that different discourses co‐exist in a structure of caring power. Caring power is a way of exercising power through kindness. Support and control are different interpretations of the actions taken within the probation service and they are both part of the caring power. When the relationship between the social worker and the client is based on mutual understanding, the caring power can function and stories about the supportive aspects are told. When there ...