Blog
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What can social network analysis tell us about the role of region of birth in criminal collaboration?
by Hernan Mondani and Amir Rostami and Jerzy Sarnecki In this study, we use Swedish register data and social network analysis to uncover the role region of birth has for the choice of co-offenders in the period 1995-2015. The study of criminal organizing and criminal collaboration is considerably difficult. Criminals are actively trying to avoid…
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Blood stains, skulls & DNA – when evidence goes digital
by Mareile Kaufman and Maja Vestad Maja enters a burnt room. There is a body on the floor and blood patterns on the wall. Evidence everywhere: furniture, ceiling – ashes cover the crime scene. She sits down to examine the body and clicks a button to get closer. Conference participants with bulky goggles walk the…
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The Scandinavian prison project: What happens when Scandinavian correctional principles and practices travel to the US?
By Synøve Nygaard Andersen The Scandinavian countries continually receive international attention for combining “exceptional” conditions of confinement with recidivism rates that are among the lowest in the world . Although the idea of Scandinavian (or Nordic) penal exceptionalism is highly contested – not least from within Scandinavian criminology itself – many countries still glance to…
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The moral burden of rape reporting
by Maria Hansen, Kari Stefansen and May-Len Skilbrei Recent years have seen significant changes in the perception of what rape is and what victims should do in its aftermath. In Norway, an increasing number of rapes are being reported to the police, many of which are committed by acquaintances and taking place in contexts involving…
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Live blogging legal trials in Denmark and Sweden
Live blogging from legal trials has become one of the most accessible and popular ways in which the public can gain direct insight into legal proceedings, particularly in countries where television cameras are denied entry into the courtroom such as Denmark and Sweden. Live blogs are descriptions of trials, written by journalists who sit in the…
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The economic impact of crime prevention and rehabilitation of prison inmates
Public expenditure on crime prevention and rehabilitation programmes are typically only considered a cost to the public budgets in Denmark. Expenditure on such programmes can however also be considered an investment, if the programmes have beneficial effects that can be documented through scientific impact evaluations. Cost-benefit-models aim to show whether the beneficial effects of programmes…
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Looking Back on the Nordic Criminology Blog 2021
What a year it has been! Earlier in 2021, we launched the Nordic Criminology Blog as a joint initiative of the Nordic Journal of Criminology (NJC) and the Nordic Research Council for Criminology (NSfK). We have published 19 blogposts from scholars engaging with criminology from a Nordic perspective. The Blog has been used to publish…
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Nordic Noir – a criminological critique
In this short blogpost, Professors Keith Hayward (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Steve Hall (formerly of the University of Northumbria and the University of Teesside, UK)contextualise and reflect on their 2020 article ‘Through Scandinavia, darkly: a criminological critique of Nordic Noir’, which appeared in Volume 61 of the British Journal of Criminology.…
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Criminology in the time of populism
By Jerzy Sarnecki, Senior professor of criminology Throughout my more than 45-year research career, I have strived for a simple (one might say positivistic) logic when it comes to the relationship between research and politics. We researchers provide politicians with facts. Based on this and other knowledge, politicians make the necessary decisions. In the vulgar attacks on…
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Drug policy in Iceland: A paradigm shift in sight?
By Helgi Gunnlaugsson, Professor of Sociology, University of Iceland I always enjoy participating in the annual European criminology conference. This year only held online. A pity not being able to socialize on site with the colleagues yet easy to wander between different sessions. This year I gave a talk in a working group on European drug…