This thesis revolves around criminalization as a solution of social problems in a Danish context. We examine the political debate regarding the tightening of The Danish Criminal Code § 197 (prohibition on begging), which introduce the term “insecurity causing begging”. Our main empirical foundation are transcriptions of the debate of the law reform in the Danish Parliament, and in addition to this we use newspaper articles and other selected media as well as legal documents.
By enumeration we find that the term “Romany” are massively represented in the articulations of the law reform and in the descriptions of the problem.
Through discourse analysis we examine the discursively constructs of respectively the categorization of Romany and the categorization of the term “insecurity causing”, and we conclude that in the political articulation, the two constructions draw reciprocal connotations to each other and their ascribing of meaning become intertwined.
Additionally we analyse which justification polities that are utilized in the debate, when politicians justify or criticize the section of the law. We conclude that the prominent polity in the debate is industrial polity. Both supporters and opponents of the law reform draw on efficiency in their argumentation. We also conclude that fame polity is utilized to delegitimize the debate and that Romany is characterised based on market polity, but is valued based on civic polity and is thus described as un-worthy.
In both analysis we examine our findings using theory of deservingness criteria, We conclude that in both the discursive articulation and in the justification of the law reform the Romany is constructed as of undeserving of help.
Finally we discuss the tendency of criminalization as a solution of social problems, and discuss the possible impact on the field of social work.