Utredningsbara misshandelsbrott? : En studie av polisens förutsättningar och förmåga att utreda och klara upp misshandelsbrott

The police are involved in almost all phases of a criminal investigation, starting with the crime itself and ending in court. The clearance rate is a core issue. If this rate is low or decreases, perpetrators will not be prosecuted and sentenced, and the police will be criticized. If this is to be rectified it is necessary to understand why it happens (causes).The aim of this study has been to investigate the prerequisites for the investigation of assault crimes and the police's ability to solve these crimes. The objective has been to produce knowledge for a follow-up model that can provide a more multifaceted picture of the police investigation results, beyond just reported preliminary investigation protocols (FUP).The data consist of 384 police reports regarding assaults that were assessed to be non-serious. In line with the aim of the study, the study employs a Swedish equivalent of the Evidence-Based Investigative Tool (EBIT) (McFadzien et al., 2020; Sherman, 2018).Rational decision theory (March, 1994) has been applied, along with theories focused on the way street bureaucracies manage and prioritize among an incessant influx of cases (Lipsky, 2010) and on various mechanisms that influence the approaches employed (Brodkin, 2011a; Jönsson, 2021). As a measure of the prerequisites for police investigations, a number of basic variables have been employed to reflect whether there is an identified victim, who then cooperates with the investigation, and an identifiable perpetrator. Other basic variables reflect whether there are witnesses, or surveillance cameras that may have captured the incident. As a measure of the police's investigative ability, the study employs variables focused on whether victims and witnesses have been interrogated and whether the police have checked/obtained footage from surveillance cameras.The results show that the conditions for investigating assault are not optimal. Only one third of cases meet all the specified requirements. In about 7