Criminology in Europe

The leading theme of this year’s ESC conference is crimes against humans and humanity. I will not write about these crimes in detail but will try to depict my experience with Bosnian colleagues over the past two decades of conducting joint research and teaching criminology at their faculty.

Although it is nowadays perceived as a non-legal science, like elsewhere in Europe, criminology in Bosnia and Herzegovina was initially taught only at the Faculty of Law of the Sarajevo University. The first criminology institute was established at the very same faculty in 1955.

In 2017, the European Society of Criminology (ESC) had 1173 members, of which 23% were students. The 17th Annual Meeting of the Society took place in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, from 13 to 16 September 2017 and attracted 1110 participants, of which 77% were ESC members.

On its fifth birthday, the Criminal Law-Making Policy WG is more active than ever.

The European Society of Criminology Working Group on Cybercrime was initiated two years ago in order to establish an interdisciplinary community of researchers and policymakers interested in various aspects of cybercrime.

The Working Group “Immigration, Crime and Citizenship” was established in 2014 with an intention to bring together scholars interested in issues such as the crime and victimisation of migrants and the crime and state harm in transnational migration. Since then, these issues have received heightened attention in both politics, media and scholarship.

The idea for a European working group on the role of space and place in crime was launched by Henk Elffers at the 15th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology (ESC) in Porto, Portugal. Those present on that warm September day immediately welcomed the idea of forming a group of European researchers active in this domain to share ideas about the space, place and crime nexus.

Qualitative methods, having a longstanding tradition in criminology, were lacking a dedicated place for researchers to share experiences and expertise for overcoming common challenges and difficulties. The WG’s goals, as set from the beginning, are to facilitate new avenues for qualitative research in criminology, increase interdisciplinary thinking, and sustain close networking and cooperation on research and education projects.

I feel very honoured to have been nominated to stand for election for the Presidency of the European Society of Criminology. For the past 18 years, the European Society has played a key role in promulgating scholarly exchange and cooperation in the field of Criminology. Never, however, has it been more salient than in these turbulent times when the post-war European project has become increasingly under threat.

If elected, I will work to advance the multi-disciplinary and transnational goals of the European Society of Criminology, and encourage transnational cooperation among those engaged in criminology at the European and international levels.

In the summer issue of 2014, I published a short piece in on the stories behind some of the pictures that have appeared on the cover of the Newsletter over the years. The reason for it was the puzzlement some felt when looking at the images, searching for a connection between the content and the cover. Many thought the pictures were random, selected for their colours. Well, they are not: I always try to find a cover that references one of the texts in the issue. Sometimes, the connection is obvious; sometimes it is not. Here, for a second time, I want to explain how some of the covers have been chosen.