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 researchers and practitioners who approach computing from different disciplinary and professional perspectives. These would include computer science and software research, sociology and science and technology studies, law, philosophy, cybersecurity, public policy, civil society and investigative journalism. The network seeks to discuss the computing environments through which public and private institutions increasingly operate, and their implications for crime, security, rights, accountability and social justice.
This interdisciplinary orientation is also central to the rationale for the 404 Justice seminars, which will provide the Network's first regular forum for these conversations. Referencing the HTTP 404 ‘Not Found’ response when a requested resource cannot be located, these seminars will ask where justice and accountability are located when computing redistributes knowledge, decision-making, institutional authority and responsibility. Seminars may consider how software and data infrastructures change what police or security institutions can know; how computational systems redistribute discretion and alter the production of evidence; how new forms of crime and harm emerge alongside technical capabilities; or how responsibility becomes divided when public functions depend upon multiple systems and organisations.
Alongside seminars, CCCN plans to develop activities targeted at students and early-career researchers working across disciplinary boundaries. These will include methods workshops introducing approaches for studying software, infrastructures and other computational systems; conversations about careers spanning academia, corporates, policy and civil society; and opportunities for MPhil and PhD students to encounter research questions, methods and potential collaborators that may sit outside conventional criminological training.
Researchers, students and practitioners interested in how contemporary computing is changing criminology are invited to follow forthcoming announcements about speakers, seminars, workshops and other Network activities.