News

In her new book, ‘Aristotle’s Prison: A Search for Humanity in Tragic Places’, published by Oxford University Press in April this year, Professor Alison Liebling considers the different moral climates experienced in prisons, and what conditions are needed to create a supportive prison culture. Liebling argues that a moral prison environment is one …

We are delighted to announce that Professor Leo Zaibert has become Director of the Institute of Criminology.Leo joined the Institute in 2022 after more than 25 years working in the United States and two years in his native Venezuela. He is the inaugural holder of the Andreas von Hirsch Professorship in Penal Theory and Ethics and Director of the Ce…

A new student-led interdisciplinary initiative, the Cambridge Computing & Criminology Network (CCCN), has been established by PhD student Karan Tripathi. The network will launch its first recurring seminar programme, ‘404 Justice: Crime and Punishment in the Computable Society’ in Michaelmas Term 2026.CCCN aims to connect criminologists with resear…

Inspector Jack Stabler, an MSt student at the Institute of Criminology, received a Society of Evidence-Based Policing Innovation Award for the creation of the Cumbria Road Harm Index.In 2023, Stabler attended the Cambridge Centre for Evidence-Based Policing, which inspired him to develop a new harm index aimed at reducing harm across the road netwo…

The book 'Character, Circumstances, and Criminal Careers: Towards a Dynamic, Developmental, and Life-Course Criminology' by Per-Olof H Wikström, Kyle Treiber and Gabriela Roman, was awarded the Division of Developmental and Life Course Criminology Outstanding Contribution Award by the American Society of Criminology, for its unique methodological a…

Studying an MPhil, and then a PhD at Cambridge made Inqilab Shabahzov realise that academia was his passion. Now, he is helping students in Azerbaijan see the benefits of this field. Prior to my decision to go for an MPhil, my main job was outside academia.I was working as a social researcher for the largest think tank in Azerbaijan, doing surveys,…

Women’s open prisons in England and Wales are struggling to fulfil their function as sites of resettlement, due to an increasing number of prisoners on short sentences. This was the conclusion drawn by Daria Przybylska, a PhD student at the Prisons Research Centre, in her latest article in the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies’ Prison Service Jo…

A new open-access book by Professor Ben Crewe aims to excavate the ‘social and emotional texture’ of life in close supervision centres - the most restrictive and controlled units in the England and Wales prison system.‘Deep Confinement: Everyday Imprisonment and Extremity in the Close Supervision Centres’ documents Crewe’s unprecedented access to t…

Doctoral workshop unites Cambridge researchers from across disciplines to discuss gender-focused research, emphasising the role of evidence-based fieldwork.On 13 July, the Justice and Society Research Centre hosted their Theory and Methods Workshop titled ‘Researching gender-based vulnerabilities: narratives of precarities and resistance from the f…

A policing workshop on 16 to 17 April allowed attendees to experience the difficulties faced by police officers, using virtual reality (VR) technology, while also laying the groundwork for a much larger research project on public trust in the police.The workshop was led by Gabriela Roman, an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Criminol…

From 13-16 July, the Institute of Criminology hosted the 2026 Evidence-Based Policing Conference at the Faculty of Law, chaired by Professor Barak Ariel.The conference theme, ‘Beyond Borders: Evidence-Led Solutions for Global Crime and Policing Challenges’, was chosen to reflect the growing international importance of evidence-based approaches to c…

It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Professor Andreas von Hirsch, one of the most influential criminological thinkers of his generation and a figure whose work shaped international debates on penal theory and criminal justice ethics.For more than three decades, Andreas played a central role in the intellectual life of the Universit…

The report published today, titled ‘Desistance After Imprisonment Abroad’, is the result of collaborative research by Drs Caroline Lanskey and Angelique Mulholland, with the human rights and welfare charity, Prisoners Abroad. In the largest UK study of its kind, the researchers set out to explore the resettlement and desistance experiences of Briti…

Parole is supposed to ask a hard, practical question: has a person serving a life sentence reached the point where release can be responsibly considered?New research by PhD student Karan Tripathi and Netanel Dagan, Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shows that this decision can carry a much wider burden. Their article, published…

 On July 1, the Prison Research Centre and the Radzinowicz Library were delighted to host a joint Institute event with Andy West, writer, philosopher, and teacher of philosophy in HMP Grendon Spring Hill. Andy joined colleagues, students, and visitors for a seminar reflecting on his bestselling memoir 'The Life Inside' and its BBC adaptation, 'Wait…