Navigating responsibility: How local Swedish schools respond to external crime prevention mandates

Abstract This study explores how Swedish school staff interpret and enact external crime prevention mandates in the context of intensified policy and public concern about youth crime. Based on qualitative interviews with teachers, principals, and resource personnel in two socio-demographically contrasting Stockholm schools, the study examines meanings ascribed to crime prevention and the negotiation of responsibility at local schools. Framed by theories of responsibilization, discretion and policy enactment, the analysis reveals how staff navigate tensions between policy rhetoric and perceived everyday realities. Their accounts expose the emotional labour negotiating expanded mandates and resisting stigmatizing narratives, revealing the burdens of responsibilization as felt responsibility. The article advances a recipient perspective on school crime prevention and problematizes the ongoing expansion of preventive policy expectations.