Forum for Science, Industry and Business

More global view required in criminology

This defensive view of international themes in criminology ignores the fact that the Netherlands is an active player on the world stage and that time, place and distance (in geographical and cultural terms) have acquired a completely new meaning. This is the view of professor René van Swaaningen in his lecture 'Towards cosmopolitan criminology'.

Van Swaaningen links analyses of this ‘globalisation’ to insights from cultural criminology and produces 'cosmopolitan criminology’. On Friday 7 September 2007, Van Swaaningen will accept the chair of extraordinary professor in International comparative criminology in Erasmus School of Law from the EUR Trust Fund Association.

Globalisation has many consequences for criminological research. For example, ‘global governance’ sheds a different light on regulation and supervision. Opportunities for national states to provide effective supervision have declined through globalisation and new forms of social exclusion have come into being. ‘Global cities’ – big cities and urban regions – supposedly have a more important position in many respects than national states. Comparative research into security of major seaports could illustrate this.

Global processes affect local developments and local events affect global processes. This is called ‘glocalisation’. Cultural criminological research shows how global poverty, the consumer culture and music styles (e.g. hip hop and rap) create the identity and perception of security and insecurity. ‘The rules game’ is another central area of research: who is involved at global, supranational, national, regional and local levels in establishing and maintaining rules and who ensures that they are actually enforced? ‘Cyberspace’ is also becoming increasingly important. And finally, research focusing not so much on the locality but on the ‘global flow’, i.e. the global flow of goods and people, is very important for the development of international comparative criminology.

This inaugural lecture is part of the inaugural lecture 'Control: about the dynamics between criminality and social control', held by three professors of the School of Law of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Besides René van Swaaningen, Pieter Spierenburg (Historical criminology) and Henk van de Bunt (Criminology) will also be accepting their chairs on this day.

Yvette Nelen | alfa
Further information:
http://www.eur.nl/english/pressroom

Im Focus: Spider silk key to new bone-fixing composite

University of Connecticut researchers have created a biodegradable composite made of silk fibers that can be used to repair broken load-bearing bones without the complications sometimes presented by other materials.

Repairing major load-bearing bones such as those in the leg can be a long and uncomfortable process.

Im Focus: Writing and deleting magnets with lasers

Study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces is the outcome of an international effort that included teams from Dresden and Berlin in Germany, and the US.

Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) together with colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of Virginia...

Im Focus: Gamma-ray flashes from plasma filaments

Novel highly efficient and brilliant gamma-ray source: Based on model calculations, physicists of the Max PIanck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg propose a novel method for an efficient high-brilliance gamma-ray source. A giant collimated gamma-ray pulse is generated from the interaction of a dense ultra-relativistic electron beam with a thin solid conductor. Energetic gamma-rays are copiously produced as the electron beam splits into filaments while propagating across the conductor. The resulting gamma-ray energy and flux enable novel experiments in nuclear and fundamental physics.

The typical wavelength of light interacting with an object of the microcosm scales with the size of this object. For atoms, this ranges from visible light to...

Im Focus: Basel researchers succeed in cultivating cartilage from stem cells

Stable joint cartilage can be produced from adult stem cells originating from bone marrow. This is made possible by inducing specific molecular processes occurring during embryonic cartilage formation, as researchers from the University and University Hospital of Basel report in the scientific journal PNAS.

Certain mesenchymal stem/stromal cells from the bone marrow of adults are considered extremely promising for skeletal tissue regeneration. These adult stem...

Im Focus: Like a wedge in a hinge

Researchers lay groundwork to tailor drugs for new targets in cancer therapy

In the fight against cancer, scientists are developing new drugs to hit tumor cells at so far unused weak points. Such a “sore spot” is the protein complex...