This paper asks for an expanded view on punishment beyond the penal system. Building upon policy documents on state driven coercive care of children, it explores the conflict between traditional paternalistic claims on society's duty to protect children and liberal claims of children as rights holders.
I argue that an extended focus on liberal claims of the right to protection and the focus on children as rights holders are used to bring state protection to the forefront in a way that creates a new paternalism. A new paternalism that contributes to an extended state coercion within the welfare system. Framed as a ‘social right’ and a ‘protective legislation’ the coercive care is a part of the social service system and the welfare state. A part of the system that is not conditional but coercive and which define and signal what is socially destructive and deviate from the fundamental norms of the society. This suggests that we must theorize the child welfare not as a technical implement for ensuring social rights, but as a core political capacity enabling the public to structure and order private life and to create conditions favorable to state interests.