The Stockholm Prize in Criminology

04/02/2026

This year's Stockholm Criminology Symposium takes place June 8-10 at Münchenbryggeriet in Stockholms stad (🇸🇪).

☝️Do not miss the opportunity to present your research at the Stockholm Criminology Symposium. All abstracts must be submitted by February 13.

Following the research interest of the prize winners Mark Lipsey and Charis Kubrin, the main symposium theme will be "A better Understanding of Migration, Ethnicity and Crime". The second specific theme is "The Power of Crime Prevention Programs" and the third, more general theme, is "Contemporary criminology".

Find the complete call for papers and guidelines on how to submit an abstract on the Stockholm Criminology Symposium website. Link in comments.

As always, the symposium is hosted by Brå (The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention).

11/11/2025

BREAKING NEWS: The 2026 winners of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology have been announced. Charis E. Kubrin (🇺🇸) and Mark W. Lipsey (🇺🇸) will be awarded for their myth-busting research on crime rates and measures against crimes.

🎖️The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is the world's most prestigious award in the field of criminology. It is awarded annually and amounts to 1.5 million SEK to share. The international jury announced the winners in a ceremony at Stockholm University on November 11. The awards will be presented next June in Stockholm.

The 2026 prize recognize two scientific myth-busters for comprehensively demonstrating that immigration does not generally transform communities towards higher crime rates, and that rehabilitation programs can function and reduce convicted offenders' crime rates.

By using both original research and systematic reviews of all relevant research to disprove politically volatile claims, the laureates have improved our awareness of potentially beneficial transformations in crime rates for both communities and individual offenders.

The work of Charis E. Kubrin and her colleagues provides unexpected findings, such as immigration leading to lower community crime rates in many cities in the US, Canada and Australia, while reporting more mixed results across Europe. The team also found many studies in which immigrant individuals had lower crime rates in their new communities than native-born residents. These analyses give an abundance of evidence disproving claims that immigration generally, let alone universally, raises crime in communities.

Kubrin's work has demonstrated the need for greater precision in immigration studies to replace simplistic generalizations. Since her first immigration and crime study in 2009 (with Graham Ousey), she has found important nuances in the relationship between crime and immigration. For example, she showed that the total homicide rates were more often lower in US cities with higher immigration levels, while the gang related homicide was higher.

In her most recent work, Kubrin addresses even more policy-relevant nuances that can create differential effects of immigration on crime rates: legal vs. illegal immigrant status, first vs. second generation immigration, economic context and other factors. This research has great potential as a scientific support in policy-making.

The work of Mark Lipsey and his colleagues stands up against a major myth on crime: the claim that rehabilitation does not work for convicted offenders. Using the methodology called meta-analysis, the work is renowned for drawing complex conclusions from hundreds of independent studies. Since his first meta-analysis in 1992 analysed 443 separate studies of the effects of rehabilitation programs for juvenile offenders, Lipsey's work has provided substantial evidence on the benefits of rehabilitative programs for offenders young and old.

Lipsey's subsequent work found more studies showing similar results in a range of large meta-analyses. Even in comparisons of diverting juveniles from prosecution (but with rehabilitation), against prosecuting them without rehabilitative court sentences, Lipsey reached the same conclusion: that rehabilitation can work if it is provided to offenders, with or without criminal sentences.

The policy impact of Lipsey's work has also been substantial. Many observers credit Lipsey’s work with preserving support for the idea of rehabilitation in various correctional institutions when many leaders had concluded that "nothing works". His research shows that rehabilitation can work if it is delivered properly according to their scientific designs. Those findings provided further evidence for the claim that inadequate funding of rehabilitation of offenders in and outside institutions will increase crime rates.

Charis E. Kubrin is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine, where she has worked since 2011. She is also co-director of the Irvine Laboratory for Space and Crime, studying all levels of analysis including street segments, blocks, neighbourhoods, cities, counties, and metropolitan areas. A graduate of Smith College, she earned a PhD at the University of Washington.

Mark W. Lipsey is Research Professor and Director of the Peabody Research Institute of Vanderbilt University, where he has worked since 1992. A graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, he earned a PhD at the Johns Hopkins University.

The Stockholm Prize in Criminology was established in 2005 to draw international attention to criminological research and its importance to crime prevention among policy makers and society at large. First awarded in 2006 it is now the world’s largest and most prestigious criminology prize. Since 2012, the prize has been awarded by the Stockholm Prize in Criminology Foundation, established by the Swedish government and the Torsten Söderberg Foundation. An independent international jury selects its proposed laureate from a pool of nominees. The prize is awarded during a formal ceremony at Stockholms stadshus / Stockholm City Hall, held in June in conjunction with the international Stockholm Criminology Symposium. 👏

More information about the prize can be found at https://stockholmprizeincriminology.org/

11/11/2025

👉 Don't miss out today at 2:30 pm (CET), when the winner/s of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology 2026 will be announced. Live from Stockholm University, by the chairmen of the jury, Lawrence Sherman and Jerzy Sarnecki.

🛰️ Broadcasted live in the link.

Announcements of the winners of the 2026 Stockholm Prize in Criminology On 11 November 2025 at 14:30, the winners of the 2026 Stockholm Prize in Criminology will be announced; watch the live broadcast below.

12/06/2025

Den 10 juni delas Stockholmspriset i Kriminologi ut för tjugonde året. I Stockholms stadshus tar Frances Crook…

12/06/2025

Prize winner Frances Crook interviewed in Dagens ETC (in Swedish - link in comments).

12/06/2025

Debatten om hur brottslighet ska stävjas kan inte föras bara i rikspolitiken, skriver debattörerna.

11/06/2025

After lunch we joined a few more workshops at :

💶Have you ever found a 100€ bill on the street and wondered whether to keep it or not? Stefanie Eifler (Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, 🇩🇪) hasn’t only pondered the question but investigated it empirically: how norms influence people’s decisions to keep found objects.

🤖Sarah Lageson (Northeastern University, 🇺🇸) has analyzed the automated expungement of criminal records in the USA—a reform aimed at reducing discrimination in areas such as employment and housing. Her analysis shows that while automation holds promise, it also creates new issues, including incomplete expungements and lack of clarity in the processes.

👮🏽‍♂️In 2015, the 🇸🇪 police implemented a new Community Policing Model, aiming to get “closer to the citizens”, be more available to partners and show more presence. Has it worked? Therese Skoglund Shekarabi (Police Region Stockholm & University of Cambridge) has studied the implementation in three police districts. Going from implementation to effective strategic work took a long time. In vulnerable areas, the process took 2-3 years, in other areas up to 6 years before the police expressed the reform was working and was properly staffed. For future implementations, Skoglund Shekarabi suggests using NGOs in the planning phase, as it can be a great resource to increase trust and legitimacy amongst citizens,

🛑Lars Lewenhagen (Polisen, 🇸🇪) presents an impact evaluation of the new Swedish legislation of preventive exclusion orders, prohibiting certain individuals from visiting public places if they are responsible for promoting crime in the area. The aim of the law was to prevent crimes linked to criminal networks, and to enhance safety. The evaluation shows that the law is an effective way to reduce violent crime and reported drug offences – for a limited time in a specific place.

🤝Renato Roseno (Violence Prevention Committee of Ceará State, 🇧🇷) and his colleague have studied “Caring in Networks” in Brazil, and how such networks can support direct and indirect victims of armed violence. In 2024 alone, the region studied recorded 403 adolescents subject to intentional lethal crimes. Care to victims of armed violence is therefore crucial. Support of victims can be seen as a form of tertiary prevention, targeted at individuals at high risk from becoming victims and later in life also themselves perpetrators of homicide.

Renato Roseno has also researched the effects of sociodemographic characteristics of homicide victims. The findings suggest that variables such as race, gender and age all do effect the investigation process of homicide cases in Brazil. Mainly it effects interactions with police and prosecutors, leading to delays in charges. Those victims considered having lower values, due to sociodemographic factors, elicited fewer resources from actors in the investigation process and during prosecution.

🚙Samuel de França Marques (USP - Universidade de São Paulo, 🇧🇷) presents a study that examines the effectiveness of Network Kernel Density Estimation (NKDE) compared to traditional KDE in identifying car robbery hotspots in São Paulo. By accounting for street network structures, NKDE offers more accurate spatial insights, and its weighted version highlights new priority areas for police deployment.

👮‍♀️Johanna Kindgren (The Swedish Police Authority, 🇸🇪) analyzes youth crime patterns in Sweden, revealing that a small number of locations are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime and harm. The results support integrating place-based strategies into existing policing methods to better address youth-related offenses.

📱Chloe Keel (Griffith University, 🇦🇺) talks about research investigates how fear of victimization shapes individuals’ everyday movement and activity patterns, particularly the balance between obligatory and discretionary activities. Mobile app data shows that higher perceived risk is linked to reduced discretionary mobility, informing both crime prevention strategies and urban planning efforts.

👤Novel In-Detention Substance Use Treatment have impact on women’s recidivism and self-concepts, Clay Driscoll (Northern Kentucky University’s Institute for Health Innovation, 🇺🇸) and team found through their research focused on a novel substance use program for incarcerated women in the Midwestern United States. The study shows how these programs can be used to help shift detainees’ sense of self, indicates marked changes in criminal thinking and even thou it requires additional follow-ups; there are promising results considering recidivism and avenue for reporting.

11/06/2025

Three studies presented at that explore crime from a life-course perspective, focusing on how alcohol, drugs, mental health issues, and negative life events interact with criminal behavior. The researchers identify different developmental patterns, risk groups, and highlight the need for early, targeted interventions:

🔎Margit Wiesner and colleagues (University of Houston, 🇺🇸) followed 206 at-risk men over 27 years and identified three groups of offenders based on the frequency of their criminal behavior, each showing different crime trajectories linked to alcohol and drug use.

🔎Clas Björklund and colleagues (Stockholm University, 🇸🇪) analyzed data from 2,799 young men and women in Sweden, aged 16 to 21, and identified four developmental trajectories for alcohol use and criminality.

🔎Linn Persson (Malmö universitet, 🇸🇪) examines how negative life events and mental health problems interact with youth delinquency.

11/06/2025

20 years ago, philanthropist Jerry Lee was in many ways instrumental in creating the Prize. To his honor, a Jerry Lee lecture is held every year at . This year Lawrence Sherman and Jerzy Sarnecki present some conclusions from these first years, with Lee present.

The lecture can be seen digitally. Link in comments.

11/06/2025

Despite the prize celebrations late last evening we were up early already this morning. Many interesting findings still remain to be presented on this last day of :

First, a few highly relevant points since we’re in a social media environment:

👉🏽Gordon Crews (UTRGV - The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 🇺🇸) talked about how doomscrolling—the act of continuously consuming negative news—heightens individuals’ perceptions of danger. He also talked about the concept of Mean World Syndrome, where people due to media exposure perceive the world more dangerous than it actually is.

👉🏽Maya Lahav (University of Oxford, 🇬🇧) is studying the social media ecosystem of online s*x trafficking. Social media platforms have become complex ecosystems where trafficking operations recruit, manipulate and advertise victims with increasing sophistication and understanding s*x trafficking in the digital-physical nexus is crucial for developing safe online spaces and disrupting trafficking networks.

👉🏽Per-Albin Johansson (Tryggare Sverige, 🇸🇪) presented HackShield Future Cyber Heroes, which is a 🇳🇱 initiative utilises gamified storytelling to equip children with the skills to identify and protect themselves against online dangers, fostering ethical digital discussions with parents and proactively reducing cybercrime vulnerability. “We want to make them a part of the solution instead of a part of a potential problem” he said.

Also:

👉🏽Angela Higginson (QUT (Queensland University of Technology), 🇦🇺) presented studies showing reports from victims of hate speech and from bystanders often differ when it comes to what actually predicts bystander intervention. Not all bystander actions are equally helpful. In fact, bystanders tend to perceive their own actions as more helpful than victims do. Interestingly, individuals who have experienced being both a victim and a bystander tend to report feeling more helpful when acting as bystanders.

From the victims’ perspective, practical and direct actions are considered more helpful than emotional support. In particular, direct intervention is seen as more beneficial than simply offering comfort or reassurance.

👉🏽Nissi P Monsegue (Broken Walls Victim Advocacy, 🇹🇹): "Everyone looks at the offender and forgets that they're victims as well. No one wakes up one day and decides to be an offender."

👉🏽Lou Vanbeselaere (Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy, Universiteit Gent, 🇧🇪) has studied the differences in treatment of youth, depending on the age of criminal responsibility. EU law policies concerning criminal matters are unclear, lacking definitions. What are the implications on EU level, if countries put different meaning to things such as criminal law, legal procedures regarding youth justice? Vanbeselaere shows that youth justice can be both a part of criminal law and non-criminal law, depending on country. Such uncertain treatment: youth receiving full EU-law protection or not, or closed detention or not, is a sign of arbitrariness. This study therefore calls for autonomous interpretation of EU criminal law.

👉🏽Voula Marinos (Brock University, 🇨🇦) talked about the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). He drew attention to the fact that youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a group that is also frequently overrepresented in the youth justice system, could encounter challenges in accessing justice. This analysis shows that lawyers themselves identify systemic challenges in the youth system, as well as an educational gap when it comes to youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Courses on disability at law school, training about disabilities for lawyers, and a more adjusted law system for youth with IDD could be what is needed to ensure access to justice for all young people. Also, mandatory screening and assessments at the earliest possible stage is recommended.

👉🏽Paul Heaton (University of Pennsylvania, 🇺🇸) proposed using facial recognition software to improve eyewitness photo lineups. Mistaken ID’s are a major cause of wrongful convictions, and a key challenge in lineup construction is selecting filler photos that are neither too similar nor too different from the suspect. By analyzing facial similarity scores, lineups can be more objectively and consistently populated with appropriate fillers, improving identification reliability.

👉🏽Alessandro Negro (GraphAware, 🇮🇹) discussed the potential for police to use knowledge graphs capable of tracking criminal patterns in real time. He gave an example of a child abduction, where the first responding officer could immediately receive a list of potential suspects in the area matching the eyewitness description.

👉🏽Valeria Abreu Minero (UCL, 🇬🇧) talked about their work of improving the digital triage in an investigation where delayed knowledge and expertise can lead to missed opportunities. Over 90% of reported crime has a digital element that are forensic opportunities.

10/06/2025

The Stockholm Prize in Criminology 2025 has now been handed over to the laureates by H.M. Queen Silvia 🇸🇪👸🏻.

👏🏼Anne Ramberg, chair of the foundation, welcomed by saying that during its 20 years, the prize has advanced our understanding of both individual and structural causes of crime. It has encouraged more effective and humane public policies for addressing crime. The Prize has raised awareness of alternative crime prevention strategies within both the justice system and civil society. It has also supported practices that assist victims, and it has contributed to the development of better methods to reduce government abuse and corruption in justice systems worldwide.

👏🏼Gunnar Strömmer, 🇸🇪’s Minister for Justice, told the laureates and gathered criminologists: As researchers you are entitled to expect politics to show interest in your results, and balance it with practicalities, values, ideas, expectations etc.

👏🏼Lawrence Sherman, co-chair of the jury, presented the laureates and thanked them for their outstanding contributions to criminology, and to the mission of our science of creating more benefit for humanity.

In his acceptance speech, Bryan Stevenson told about his grandmother - that was the daughter of parents that had been enslaved - and how a promise he gave to her as a kid has helped in his lifelong strive for identity.

After many serious conversations over the last days, Frances Crook took on a more playful tone in her acceptance speech: “I’m overwhelmed with the whole thing. You have been wonderful and you’re all lovely.”