Karlsruhe Dialogues 2010

is a professor for criminology and criminal justice at the School of Law, University of Leeds. Before she assumed her post as a professor for criminology at Keele University in England in 2000, she taught at the Universities of Bielefeld and Hamburg and also did research there. Furthermore, she was a criminal-political adviser to ministries, municipalities and the police.

Karstedt does comparative criminological and penalty research, mainly focusing on individual and government violence. Her research interests also include moral economics of the European middle classes, the phenomenon of collective memories of the past and the nature of legal institutions in transitional societies. More historically based is her research on the punishment of war criminals in Germany after 1945.

Karstedt’s contributions to her field of work have often been recognized. In 2005, she received the Christa Hoffmann-Riehm Award for socio-legal studies. In 2006, she was awarded by the International Society for Criminology, and one year latershe received the Sellin-Glueck Award of the American Society of Criminology.

In addition to her teaching activity and research work, Karstedt has been a member of the scientific advisory council of the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony since 2009, and a member of the Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology in Vienna since 2008. Furthermore, she is co-editor of the British Journal of Criminology and supports numerous other journals as scientific adviser.

ZAK asked Prof. Dr. Susanne Karstedt to answer the following question:

Globalization makes it possible that organized crime expands. What can be done against it at the local level?

"Above all, organized crime benefits illegal markets and their high chances of profit. That is why, on the local level, strategies to (partly) legalize illegal markets are generally a viable option, which should be all the more effective in the supra-national context. OC often aims at ethnic minorities and immigrants. Therefore, strengthening these groups’ trust in the local police and authorities is a promising measure. New monitoring strategies in issuing municipal licences for the catering and amusement industries, as currently exercised in the Netherlands, also have promising prospects."