University of Helsinki
CEACG researcher, Dr.Soc.Sci. Rikka Kotanen has received a post doctoral three year Academy grant for the project “From a parenting measure to a crime? The legal regulation and control of parental corporal violence in Finland 1968–2014”
The project, which is interdisciplinary located at the intersection of sociology, social work, criminology and criminal law, examines parental violence towards a child from the perspectives of legal regulation and control. The focus is on 1) the criminalizing process of parental violence toward a child in Finland, and later revisions of the law, 2) the practical consequences of implementing these particular laws in the practice of social work, and 3) comparing the legal regulation of corporal violence of a child and the legal regulation of violence towards an adult partner.
The main objectives of the project are to analyze which kind of actors, perceptions and justifications were focal when all forms of corporal punishment of children were criminalized in Finland, and how legal regulation has changed during 1968-2014, and moreover, to investigate the practical implementation and the effects of this particular legal regulation: have the objectives of the legislation been realized in social work, and what are the key problems between the written law and the implementation.
The three year project begins in the autumn of 2015.