This project focuses on sex crimes in Swedish criminal law. It aims to combine a legal dogmatic study of the central sexual offences under the Swedish criminal code with an analysis of the public debate in the area, in a way that can be fruitful for both the legal and the political debate on sex crimes. The legal dogmatic analysis primarily aims at the construction of the law in the area, but also at providing the basis for a better understanding of the debate in the area and of the actual implications of different reform proposals. The point of departure for this first part of the project is that the amount of legal dogmatic research in the area has been limited. The second part of the project focuses on the public debate in the area - in newspapers, in radio and on television. The purpose of this study is to show what issues the debate has focused on during the years (issues relating to punishability as such, issues relating to labelling, issues relating to sentencing etc.) and at what levels (the legislative level, the level of application, the level of values and attitudes behind the legal framework etc.) these issues are situated.