“Crime, Choice, and Context”

Special issue of Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency now published

March 01, 2023

This special issue is the result of a workshop held at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg/Germany in autumn 2021. It places the much neglected role of context at the center of the study of criminal decision making. By addressing this research gap, the authors have set the stage for innovative scientific approaches. The multidisciplinary roots of the study of criminal decision making are also revisited and the foundations of rational choice explored.

Workshop participants were specifically encouraged to move beyond the axiomatic construct of rational decision making underlying neoclassical economics. Findings and theoretical perspectives from several decades of research in criminology, behavioral economics, and psychology have also been incorporated in the analyses.

The special issue was edited by Jean-Louis van Gelder (Director at Max Planck Institute) and Daniel Nagin (Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Max Planck Law Research Fellow ). It includes contributions by Shaina Herman (Max Planck Institute) & Greg Pogarsky (University at Albany), Holly Nguyen, Thomas A. Loughran (both Pennsylvania State University) & Volkan Topalli (Georgia State University), and Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods).


The Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency (JRCD) is a peer-reviewed, bi-monthly journal that offers empirical articles and special issues to keep researchers up-to-date on contemporary issues and controversies within criminology and criminal justice.

Jean-Louis Van Gelder (ed) and Daniel S. Nagin (ed), "Crime, Choice, and Context", in Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, (2023).
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