Criminology in Europe

If you have been wondering where your ESC Newsletter is, do not worry: you did not accidentally throw it out with publisher flyers and the diverse academic spam that greeted you on your desk when your returned to your office after the lockdown was lifted. There has been none this year.

This has two reasons. One is, obviously, the pandemic, which put an extraordinary extra stress on us academics, especially on us teaching at universities. Most of us not only had to move our teaching online at a very short notice but had to produce new teaching materials and learn new ways of student-teacher communication: in one word, reinvent university education on the go. All the while taking care of our kids and making sure they themselves attend their online classes and learn as intended.

The other one is more important: The Newsletter is in the process of renewal. This, too, suffered delays due to the pandemic, but soon a new, enhanced website will go online, and the design will be renewed too. At the same time, the Executive Board has decided to the slash the print edition (though the pdf version will remain), with the exception of the summer (conference) issue, which we will continue to print – not this year, however, again due to the pandemic and the postponement of the conference.

The main reason for the changes is the costs. In many ways, the print edition has fallen victim to the extraordinary success and expansion of the ESC. Membership numbers almost tripled since I took over the Newsletter editorship in 2011, and a large part of the new members are from overseas. Posting costs, as a consequence, also rose quite dramatically, even for the unpredictable and excruciatingly slow cheaper surface mail option we used. At the same time, advertising income has been falling. While for many years the considerable advertising income helped us to keep the Newsletter successfully within the budget even with rising membership numbers, advertising now covers only a fraction of the total costs. This is mostly due to changes in the ways of advertising. Our biggest advertisers were universities and publishers, which are increasingly opting for more sophisticated and targeted online advertising campaigns over ads in publications like the Newsletter.

Those who know me and who have been on the Board know that this is a decision that does not come lightly to me. There had been propositions before to go fully online, but I have resisted them forcefully for a long time. But now I also accept that the rising costs do not make the Newsletter viable within the established budget, and it is questionable whether the ESC should cover the costs of three print issues annually, when the money for that could probably be better spent elsewhere, like on the summer school or other projects.

And the end of the regular print edition also offers an opportunity for renewal! Not only of the now somewhat dusty design of the website and the pdf version, but also, and more importantly, of the content.

But first, a note on what will not change. There will be three issues a year as usual. You will receive this as always per email. The pdf version of the three issues will also remain, only with a renewed design. The usual content of the issues (president’s column, profile of the conference organizers, essays on the criminology in the host country of the annual meeting, working group reports, candidate profiles, and others) will not change. The second, summer issue will continue to be printed and distributed at the conference venue (due to the postponement of the 2020 meeting this first print edition will be published in the summer of 2021).

The website will change more dramatically. First of all, now there will be content on the website that will be independent of the issues. These will include, among others criminology-related news, “research highlights”, short presentations of research results, articles, or significant international research projects.

For time-sensitive discussions of actual events that have relevance to criminological research from a criminologist’ perspective, the new website will also launch a blog. Written by academics, the blog will also be aimed at journalist, policymakers and a more general audience. Post will be about 600-1200 words long. Some of these can be commissioned by the Newsletter editor; the editor will cooperate with the European Journal editor(s) to invite authors of recent articles to summarize their findings in a blogpost; working groups will also be encouraged to propose topics and authors. Individual pitches by researchers will also be welcome.

The jobs and funding page will also be enhanced and extended. We intend to take our long ambition to make the ESC the foremost online hub for criminology job adverts and PhD and post-doc funding offers more seriously. The new website will feature a customized interface which will enable university administrators, university departments and research institutes to register and upload job adverts directly onto the website (with an approval process).

All in all, the changes will not be dramatic, but considerable. Below you find a sneek peak but stay tuned for the launch of the new website with new, exiting content on the effect of COVID-19 on prisons and more in the coming weeks!