New ECOH interview: Manuel Eisner
editor
ESC
08-18-2025
Manuel Eisner is Wolfson Professor of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology. He has received the Sellin-Glueck Award by the American Society of Criminology, the ESC European Criminology Award for a lifetime contribution to European Criminology, and the Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award by the American society of Criminology’s division of Experimental Criminology. He has also worked as an expert for the World Health Organization, UNODOC, UNICEF, the World Bank and several national governments. His main area of research is interpersonal violence, paying attention to its history, cultural variations and ways of preventing it, for which he has delved into life-course Criminology and stressed the importance of preventive work with adolescents and young adults.
Manuel Eisner was interviewed by Marcelo Aebi during the 2024 ESC conference in Bucharest. In this interview, Eisner reflects on the circumstances that brought him into Criminology and his first steps from Switzerland to Cambridge. Due to this wide internationalisation and knowledge of different languages, he reflects on the challenges and opportunities of working transculturally. He then explains his long-standing research on interpersonal violence, which has covered a wide range of topics, from regicides to theoretical discussions between Norbert Elias and Max Weber, or nowadays, the use of violence among youth. Importance is given to the level of analysis when analysing data as well as when discussing the validity of theories. As a founding member, Eisner comments on the current state of the ESC and advances some insights into his current research with longitudinal data and stresses the importance of violence prevention.