Institute of Criminology

Experimental Criminology @ Cambridge


Lights

Professor Sherman "Less Prison, More Policing"
Read the article.

Professor Sherman "Professional Policing". The Benjamin Franklin Award 2011.
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Welcome to the Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology. Our Centre, founded in 2007, is the first of its kind. Please meet the team:

Professor Lawrence Sherman, Director, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge, Director, Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology and Founding President, Academy of Experimental Criminology Professor Friedrich Lösel, Honrorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge, and Fellow, Academy of Experimental Criminology Professor David Farrington, Professor of Psychological Criminology and Past President, Academy of Experimental Criminology Professor Manuel Eisner, Professor of Comparative and Developmental Criminology and Fellow, Academy of Experimental Criminology Dr Heather Strang, Deputy Director, Police Executive Programme and Deputy Director, Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology Dr Barak Ariel, Jerry Lee Fellow in Experimental Criminology and Teaching Associate in the Police Executive Programme Peter Neyroud, Ph.D. Candidate, Project Director of Crime Harm Experiments and Former Chief Constable, Thames Valley & NPIA

Armed Police

We are currently engaged in several vital projects to advance our field, including:

Experimental criminology is scientific knowledge about crime and justice discovered from random assignment of different conditions in large field tests. This method is the preferred way to estimate the average effects of one variable on another, holding all other variables constant While the experimental method is not intended to answer all research questions in criminology, it can be used far more often than most criminologists assume. Opportunities are particularly promising in partnership with criminal justice agencies.

Police vans

The highest and best use of experimental criminology is to develop and test theoretically coherent ideas about reducing harm from crime, rather than just “evaluating” existing or even new government programs. Testing key ideas, in turn, can help to accumulate an integrated body of grounded theory in which experimental evidence plays a crucial role. When properly executed, randomized field experiments provide the ideal tests of theories about both the prevention and causation of crime.

The many advantages of experimental methods help explain why this branch of criminology is growing rapidly. Just since 2005, the field has seen its first journal established (Journal of Experimental Criminology), its own separate Division of Experimental Criminology within the American Society of Criminology, and the first University centre dedicated solely to this field: the sponsor of this page, the Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology at Cambridge University. All these institutions are dedicated to making the most of the better knowledge experiments can bring.

Yet these advantages depend entirely on the capability of the experimenters to insure success in achieving the many necessary elements of an unbiased comparison. Many, if not most, randomized field experiments in criminology suffer flaws that could have been avoided with better planning. The lack of such planning, in turn, may be due to the scant attention paid to field experiments in research methods texts and courses. Even skilled, senior researchers can make basic mistakes when conducting field experiments, since experiments require a very different set of skills and methods than the “normal science” of observational criminology.

This web page is intended to help foster better experiments in criminology, in three ways:

  1. Providing a format for experimental planning, called protocols.
  2. Providing registries for criminology experiments, where protocols can be transparent and credible.
  3. Providing links to people doing experimental criminology, to foster more communication.

For further information about experiments in criminology, contact Dr. Barak Ariel at Cambridge, ba285@cam.ac.uk.



YouTube video of Professor Sherman's 'Crime Hot Spots' chat


For other global institutions in experimental criminology, please click on the following links:

Professor Sherman in the Telegraph: The magic bullet that could solve our prison problem.

Professor Sherman's new book, Experimental Criminology, was published in February 2012. To purchase the book, please click HERE or on the image of the book above.

Professor Sherman is also the Director of the Police Executive Programme.