The Research Group Crime & Society (CRiS) is part of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. We undertake critical and multidisciplinary research in Youth Criminology, Penology, Urban Criminology, and Policing and Surveillance. CRiS scholarship focuses on the experiences and perceptions of crime control actors and of those subjected to crime control.
Our researchers are committed to knowledge exchange with criminal justice practitioners, policy makers, and research subjects, to create collaborative, timely, and impactful research. We offer an intellectual and collegial academic environment to study crime control. Our research is frequently collaborative; undertaking comparative research projects with international visiting researchers
THE LATEST FROM OUR RESEARCH GROUP
News
New issue of Criminological Encounters "Towards a global criminology of war"
Mattias De Backer and Lucas Melgaço proudly present the new open access issue of Criminological Encounters, guest edited by Hannah Wilkinson and Teresa Degenhardt "Towards a global criminology of war", containing articles, opinion pieces, a forum on Palestine and Gaza, interviews and an art interve...
Vacancy: Postdoc researcher ERC project CAGED
Our research group Crime & Society, is currently looking for a postdoctoral researcher in the context of the ERC project ‘CAGED: Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions’.-
Vacature: Doctoraatsbeurs ERC-project CAGED
Momenteel zijn we op zoek naar een doctoraatsbursaal aan de Faculteit Recht en Criminologie, onderzoeksgroep Crime & Society van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel binnen het ERC-project CAGED (Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions).
Events
Practical info08/12/2025 - 12:00 - 09/12/2025 - 13:00Decolonizing Criminology: Promoting South–South Dialogues
Decolonizing Criminology: Promoting South–South Dialogues is a two-day international seminar that invites scholars, students, practitioners, and the wider public to critically examine how criminological knowledge has been historically developed and disseminated, and to r
Practical info03/12/2025 - 10:00 - 03/12/2025 - 12:00Seminar: Urban violence beyond the city: articulating the political economy and the atmospheric
Abstract: Is the city inherently violent? This simple question encapsulates much of the classical endeavour of urban sociology: finding general theories about the quintessential nature of the urban, with violence being the paradigmatic field for such an exploration.
Practical info03/10/2025 - 15:00 - 03/10/2025 - 19:00PUBLIC DOCTORAL DEFENCE: ELIAS WOODBRIDGE
We are pleased to invite you to the 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 of CRiS-researcher Elias Woodbridge's doctoral thesis in Social Sciences ‘𝘙𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘦? 𝘈𝘯 𝘌𝘵𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮 𝘪𝘯 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘨𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘐𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮 𝘔𝘦𝘯'𝘴 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴'
