Neutralizing Disciplinary Violence: A Typology of Parents’ Use-of-Violence Accounts

Abstract

Disciplinary violence is banned by law in Finland, and acts of disciplinary violence fall under the category of assault. This article analyzes the accounts and justifications that parents give to justify disciplinary violence against their children. The analysis is based on child welfare documents, reports of crimes, and pretrial investigation documents from 2011. Drawing upon the techniques of neutralization and the idea of accounts, the accounts of parents are found to be split in four distinctive (yet overlapping) types which include aspects of denying either victimization or the act as such or appealing to the necessity of the forbidden act.

Keywords:

• disciplinary violence
• techniques of neutralization
• accounts
• Finland