News

Leo Zaibert, Alison Liebling, and Ben Crewe host international workshop on punishment in theory and practice

14 January 2026

zaibert_workshop.png Professor Leo Zaibert, the Andreas Von Hirsch Professor of Penal Theory and Ethics, together with Professor Alison Liebling and Professor Ben Crewe, hosted a workshop on 2-3 October 2025 titled ‘Punishment Theory Meets Punishment Practice’. The workshop centred around the contributions to a forthcoming...

Paolo Campana’s work on organised crime informs the UN 2025 World Drug Report

18 December 2025

A framework for characterising the nature of organised crime groups, developed by Paolo Campana, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Violence Research Centre, and his long-term collaborator Federico Varese, has been widely referenced by the 2025 World Drug Report , from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime...

MPhil graduate involved in major US Supreme Court case rethinking restitution in law

4 December 2025

atticus_deprospo_1.png Atticus DeProspo, lawyer and a Gates Cambridge Scholar who earned his MPhil from the Institute of Criminology in 2018, is currently serving as merits counsel in Ellingburg v United States before the US Supreme Court. This legal case is challenging the retroactive application of the restitution...

Visiting Scholar's research changes Ghana's criminal justice laws

1 December 2025

Visiting scholar and Associate Professor of Criminology Kofi Boakye has recently published important research into crime and policing in Ghana. These findings have already reformed Ghana’s justice system. This research consists of several publications. Together, they provide a comprehensive overview of criminal justice in...

PhD student's award-winning research explores risk-taking behind organised drug trafficking in Chinese society

26 November 2025

shujing_shi_590_x_288_px.png Shujing Shi, a PhD student at the Violence Research Centre,has been awarded First Place in the Graduate Student Paper Award by the American Society of Criminology's Division of International Criminology, for a chapter in her thesis. Drug trafficking in China Shujing decided to study the Chinese...

Zora Hauser publishes new research revealing the extent of mafia presence in Germany

9 October 2025

zh_bild_3.jpg Zora Hauser, recipient of the Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship, has recently published her book ‘ Mafia Expansion: The ‘Ndrangheta in Established Democracies’ . In it, she explores how the Calabrian mafia has managed to establish itself in stable, well-governed democracies such as Germany – and...

New edited volumes by Kate Herrity expand on sensory criminology and its potential applications

29 September 2025

Kate Herrity, visiting scholar at the Institute of Criminology, has recently completed two co-edited texts, one on sound and music in detention, in collaboration with colleagues in musicology and the other on sensory criminology. They represent the culmination of extensive research on the subject, partially carried out...

Laying the groundwork: PADS+ phase 3 begins

29 September 2025

pads_photo_resized.jpg The Centre for Analytic Criminology (CAC) commenced Phase 3 of the Peterborough Adolescent to Adult Development Study (PADS+), supported by a new grant from the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). To kickstart this new phase, the team is setting up the project which will unfold over the...

New 'fairness scale' could enable machine learning models to accurately predict the chance of reoffending while addressing societal biases

11 September 2025

headshot_-_oxford.jpg Machine learning tools have shown great promise in forecasting reoffending. However, the historical datasets on which they are trained can lead to perpetuation or exacerbation of existing societal biases. In his new research paper , PhD student Jacob Verrey outlines steps to 'debias' crime prediction...

New report reveals shortcomings in probation system and proposes hope-based reform

3 September 2025

jake_phillips.jpg New report reveals shortcomings in probation system and proposes hope-based reform A new report, co-authored by Dr Jake Phillips, Associate Professor at the Institute of Criminology, highlights how structural issues in the probation system in England and Wales prevent effective rehabilitation, and argues...

Leo Zaibert, Alison Liebling, and Ben Crewe host international workshop on punishment in theory and practice

Paolo Campana’s work on organised crime informs the UN 2025 World Drug Report

MPhil graduate involved in major US Supreme Court case rethinking restitution in law

Visiting Scholar's research changes Ghana's criminal justice laws

PhD student's award-winning research explores risk-taking behind organised drug trafficking in Chinese society

Zora Hauser publishes new research revealing the extent of mafia presence in Germany

New edited volumes by Kate Herrity expand on sensory criminology and its potential applications

Laying the groundwork: PADS+ phase 3 begins

New 'fairness scale' could enable machine learning models to accurately predict the chance of reoffending while addressing societal biases

New report reveals shortcomings in probation system and proposes hope-based reform

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