Rape myths are prevalent among young Danes

22 June 2022

by Sarah van Mastrigt 11,800 women are subjected to rape or attempted rape annually, according to Danish victim surveys. A new analysis from Aarhus University shows that among young people, and especially 16-20-year-old males, stereotypes and erroneous notions about rape abound. That’s a problem, as previous research suggests that rape myth acceptance can contribute to…

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Blood stains, skulls & DNA – when evidence goes digital

01 June 2022

by Mareile Kaufman and Maja Vestad Maja enters a burnt room. There is a body on the floor and blood patterns on the wall. Evidence everywhere: furniture, ceiling – ashes cover the crime scene. She sits down to examine the body and clicks a button to get closer. Conference participants with bulky goggles walk the…

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The Scandinavian prison project: What happens when Scandinavian correctional principles and practices travel to the US?

19 May 2022

By Synøve Nygaard Andersen The Scandinavian countries continually receive international attention for combining “exceptional” conditions of confinement  with recidivism rates that are among the lowest in the world . Although the idea of Scandinavian (or Nordic) penal exceptionalism is highly contested – not least from within Scandinavian criminology itself – many countries still glance to…

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The moral burden of rape reporting

02 May 2022

by Maria Hansen, Kari Stefansen and May-Len Skilbrei Recent years have seen significant changes in the perception of what rape is and what victims should do in its aftermath. In Norway, an increasing number of rapes are being reported to the police, many of which are committed by acquaintances and taking place in contexts involving…

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Live blogging legal trials in Denmark and Sweden

01 March 2022

Live blogging from legal trials has become one of the most accessible and popular ways in which the public can gain direct insight into legal proceedings, particularly in countries where television cameras are denied entry into the courtroom such as Denmark and Sweden. Live blogs are descriptions of trials, written by journalists who sit in the…

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The economic impact of crime prevention and rehabilitation of prison inmates

07 February 2022

Public expenditure on crime prevention and rehabilitation programmes are typically only considered a cost to the public budgets in Denmark. Expenditure on such programmes can however also be considered an investment, if the programmes have beneficial effects that can be documented through scientific impact evaluations. Cost-benefit-models aim to show whether the beneficial effects of programmes…

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Looking Back on the Nordic Criminology Blog 2021

21 December 2021

What a year it has been! Earlier in 2021, we launched the Nordic Criminology Blog as a joint initiative of the Nordic Journal of Criminology (NJC) and the Nordic Research Council for Criminology (NSfK). We have published 19 blogposts from scholars engaging with criminology from a Nordic perspective. The Blog has been used to publish…

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Nordic Noir – a criminological critique

16 December 2021

In this short blogpost, Professors Keith Hayward (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Steve Hall (formerly of the University of Northumbria and the University of Teesside, UK)contextualise and reflect on their 2020 article ‘Through Scandinavia, darkly: a criminological critique of Nordic Noir’, which appeared in Volume 61 of the British Journal of Criminology.…

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Criminology in the time of populism

18 November 2021

By Jerzy Sarnecki, Senior professor of criminology Throughout my more than 45-year research career, I have strived for a simple (one might say positivistic) logic when it comes to the relationship between research and politics. We researchers provide politicians with facts. Based on this and other knowledge, politicians make the necessary decisions. In the vulgar attacks on…

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