Freiburg Criminologist Honored

Florian Kaiser receives rising scholar award from criminological society

Freiburg criminologist and sociologist Florian Kaiser has been awarded the prize for rising scholars by the Association of German, Austrian and Swiss Criminologists (KrimG). Kaiser received the accolade for his dissertation “The impact of formal control on delinquency during adolescence: Do formal control interventions prevent, promote, or have no effect on delinquent development?”. It was submitted to the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University in 2022, with final granting of the PhD degree in 2023.

Florian Kaiser's work is dedicated to the topic of juvenile delinquency. Using data from the study “Crime in the Modern City" (CrimoC), he examines the impact of control interventions by police and juvenile penal courts – from educational or disciplinary measures, such as community service, to juvenile detention and prison – on young offenders. His goal is to map out when and for which youths such interventions have a preventive, correctional, or perhaps even no influence on delinquency. Five research papers that have been published in renowned scientific journals cumulatively comprise the dissertation.

Florian studied sociology at the Universities of Bremen and Bielefeld. He joined the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg in 2022 as a senior researcher and is part of the Independent Research Group Space, Contexts, and Crime. There, he addresses the socio-psychological effects and consequences of crime, with a special focus on social dynamics in urban neighborhoods. His other research interests include juvenile delinquency, the effects of juvenile justice interventions, and the consequences of criminal victimization.