Reinforcing the Centaur state : evictions, family policing and racism in Sweden
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This article engages with the increasingly repressive context of social work in Sweden. Drawingon ten focus groups together comprising a total of 51 residents of Järva, one of the districts ofStockholm particularly affected by deadly shootings in the 2020s, the article explores how theinterviewees reflect on an eviction reform introduced to create safer neighbourhoods. The measureextends landlords' power to evict families because of crime committed by a child in the household.The article analyses how the policy expands criminal policy into the reproductive sphere, reshaping parenting, family relations and trust in welfare institutions. Theoretically, by bringingLoïc Wacquant's concept of the Centaur state into dialogue with Dorothy Roberts's understandingof the family policing system, the article situates the eviction reform within the framework of abroader remodelling of the Nordic welfare state. Residents' accounts reveal how the threat ofeviction operates as a form of reproductive racism, reinforcing authoritarian parenting, cultivatingintra-family suspicion and undermining trust in social services. The article demonstrates how socialwork becomes entangled in a punitive turn intended to collapse any distinction between care andcontrol while widening the securitisation net over communities already disproportionately targetedby state surveillance.