Forschungsabteilungen
The Institute’s research agenda extends beyond the positive criminal law in national or international legal systems. Our approach can best be described as transnational criminal law theory. Criminal law theory provides normative frameworks (theories of punishment, criminalization, and criminal procedure) and analyzes goals, structures, rules, and principles for substantive criminal law, procedure, and sentencing. The main question is how the criminal law should be in contemporary democratic, liberal, rule-of-law states rather than what the law is in any given jurisdiction. Criminal law theory must be distinguished from criminal law dogmatics (Strafrechtsdogmatik), which operates within a given system of law. Criminal law dogmatics is concerned with coherent rules and practices on the national level (or for international law); its tasks include interpreting the wording of statutes and regulations and systematizing court decisions. Criminal law theory, in contrast, transcends the boundaries drawn by positive law. The term “transnational” refers to the fact that scholars from different countries can engage in fruitful discussions about the same normative questions.
For our research purposes, comparing criminal laws is not an end in itself, but comparative elements can be integrated into transnational criminal law theory. Surveying the diversity of existing rules and practices contributes to a successful mapping of the range of options and stimulates thoughts about best models and solutions. Ultimately, scholarship in the field of criminal law theory often dovetails with the field of criminal policy. Transnational criminal law theory is not merely a theoretical, academic exercise; rather, it can provide valuable insights for the development of policy recommendations. A questioning stance towards a particular criminal law system and an awareness of different approaches to the same problems or sets of problems sharpen the sense for the strengths and weaknesses of positive law. The systematic analysis of normative foundations and normative arguments contributes to rational, de-emotionalized debates about criminal law and criminal justice. Transnational criminal law theory can thus undergird proposals to modify, abolish, or maintain existing national, European, or international criminal law.
The Department of Criminology focuses on three interdisciplinary areas of interest:
1) Theoretical Innovation, 2) Methodological Innovation & Technology, and 3) Putting Crime Science into Practice.The Theoretical Innovation area of interest is dedicated to theory development from an integrative and interdisciplinary perspective. Research in this area examines the interrelations between contextual factors and individual-level factors in the explanation of criminal conduct. This approach draws on theoretical traditions within criminology but, remaining true to criminology’s interdisciplinary roots, also seeks input from other fields such as evolutionary, social, and cognitive psychology and behavioral economics.
The area of interest Methodological Innovation & Technology seeks to develop innovative methods and to apply novel technologies in the study of criminal decision making and offender rehabilitation. This objective is guided by the premise that achieving step changes in our understanding of crime and its prevention requires the exploration of novel approaches. A key technology used in this research area is virtual reality.
Crime research and theorizing regularly proceed without taking much notice of what happens “on the ground”. Criminal justice and rehabilitation practices, in turn, often pay little heed to evidence-based interventions or theory. Following Kurt Lewin’s maxim that there is nothing as practical as a good theory, the Putting Crime Science into Practice area of interest seeks to connect theory, innovative methods, and technology to policy and practice.
The Department of Public Law complements the existing Departments of Criminal Law and Criminology with a public law arm that focuses on the preventive aspects of public law. The addition of a new department was motivated by the considerable overlap between repressive crime control and preventive public security law. Not only are the instruments used in these two fields often very similar, but they also pose similar challenges to human rights, fundamental rights, and constitutional law. Regardless of whether information gathered by intelligence agencies is used in a preventive context or for purposes of criminal prosecution, similar issues arise with respect to data protection and privacy rights as well as democratic accountability. What has been described as the "preventive turn" in criminal law has brought the two fields even closer together. More and more, criminal law and public security law are regarded as functional equivalents in the fight against terrorism and organized crime: recruits to militant movements and participants in foreign militant training camps can be subjected to preventive measures – such as electronic observation or even preventive detention – or the act of joining a militant movement or attending a militant training camp can be criminalized – thus opening the door to investigative prosecutorial surveillance and prison sentences.
“Public security” is a core concept in the German-speaking public law tradition, a tradition that differs from the criminal law tradition in two major respects: First, it does not aim to repress crimes committed in the past but rather to prevent dangers to public security from materializing; second, it focuses not only on crime but rather more broadly on threats to public and private goods. It covers all laws and legal institutions designed to protect the integrity of the legal order, private goods, and state institutions from man-made or naturally occurring dangers and risks.
Historically, public law in Germany grew out of the Policey-Wissenschaft (study of public policies) of the 18th century. A goal of Policey-Wissenschaft was to systematize the various and wide-ranging practices of good policy, Gute Policey, that were introduced by the evolving administrations of the monarchs in the various territories of the Holy Roman Empire. For Foucault, the Gute Policey was one of the first modern practices of an all-encompassing “governmentality.” Examples of this good policy were not only Foucault’s famous population policies but traditionally also the prevention of dangers to public security and order. Far into the 19th century, Policey-Wissenschaft was a mix of heterogeneous methodologies, ranging from statistics to economics to the analysis of legal materials. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that administrative law as an independent field of legal study evolved together with the institutionalization of administrative courts, first in Baden and then in Prussia. Whereas the administrations initially understood their police powers in the broad scope of the traditional “Gute Policey,” police powers were limited by the Prussian High Administrative Court in its famous Kreuzberg decision of 1882 to the prevention of dangers to public security and order. Other domains of the old sweeping police powers, such as cultural, economic, or planning regulations, were made dependent on parliamentary legislation. Thus, public security law evolved as the core of German administrative law, beginning with the development of key doctrinal concepts such as public security, danger, and preventive responsibility, which were subsequently consolidated in the police and public security codes of the first half of the 20th century. From these general public security codes, specialized legislation emerged that addressed issues such as dangers to public health, threats posed by assemblies and public gatherings, and threats posed by efforts to undermine the constitutional order. Today, public security law encompasses the non-prosecution-related activities of the various police forces, intelligence agencies, and other government institutions that are concerned with the prevention of public dangers and risks.Unlike the large national and European research programs on civil security that focus on application-oriented innovations in the field, the Department of Public Law focuses more on fundamental projects. This does not presuppose antagonism between applied and fundamental research. Fundamental research has much to learn from the developing innovations in applied projects and can help to clarify more theoretical, abstract, or general issues that arise in the field. The Department will make use of these interdependencies for its more fundamental research perspectives.
The research agenda of the Department of Public Law is structured on the basis of a three-dimensional topical matrix. The general doctrinal structures and theoretical questions that underlie public security law are located on the fundamental axis of the matrix. The second axis reflects the major trends in the field: internationalization, digitalization, and fragmentation. The third axis represents the normative challenges to public security law: fundamental rights, rule of law, and democracy. The matrix aims to structure a field that is less established in the international discourse than are more traditional areas of legal research. On the one hand, the matrix will serve as a framework for departmental projects; on the other hand, the matrix will either be corroborated by these projects or it will be adjusted and modified in accordance with their results.
Forschungsgruppen
Unter der Leitung von Dr. Marc Engelhart widmet sie sich den Herausforderungen, vor die insbesondere der moderne Terrorismus das Strafrecht, das Polizeirecht und das Recht der Nachrichtendienste stellt. Neue Formen zwischenstaatlicher Zusammenarbeit, erweiterte (geheime) Überwachungsmaßnahmen, die Ausdehnung des Strafrechts durch umfassende Vorfeldkriminalisierungen und die Einbeziehung Privater in staatliche Maßnahmen (z.B. bei der Kontrolle der Terrorismusfinanzierung) lassen die klassischen Grenzen zwischen den Rechtsgebieten mehr und mehr verschwimmen. Damit entwickelt sich ein am Präventionsgedanken orientiertes Sicherheitsrecht.
Ziel der Forschungsgruppe ist es, die tatsächlichen Veränderungen von Sicherheitsrisiken und Sicherheitsdenken samt der daraus resultierenden normativen Veränderungen zu untersuchen und neue Antworten für die kriminalpolitischen Herausforderungen zu entwickeln. Über das Sicherheitsrecht hinaus beschäftigt sich die Forschungsgruppe mit dem Wirtschaftsstrafrecht, in dem eine ähnliche Entwicklung zu verzeichnen ist: Über sog. Compliance-Programme werden Private in die Prävention von Straftaten eingebunden, und mit der Herausbildung eines Unternehmensstrafrechts greift das Strafrecht in Bereiche über, die zuvor Domäne anderer Rechtsgebiete war. Einen dritten Schwerpunkt bilden das supranationale Strafrecht und die Rechtsvergleichung. Neben der Analyse und Bewertung der Entwicklung in ausländischen Rechtsordnungen steht hier besonders das Europäische Strafrecht im Fokus.
Ιm Zentrum der Forschung der Otto-Hahn-Gruppe zu „Alternative and Informal Systems of Crime Control and Criminal Justice“ stehen die zeitgenössischen alternativen Methoden der Kriminalitätsprävention und -bekämpfung sowie die informellen Prozesstypen zur Konflikterledigung in verschiedenen Kriminalitätskontroll- und Strafjustizsystemen: Die traditionellen verfahrensorientierten Justizsysteme stoßen zunehmend an ihre funktionellen und logistischen Grenzen. Dementsprechend gestiegen ist die praktische Bedeutung jener Verfahrensmechanismen und Rechtsinstitutionen, die sich die Verbesserung der Strafverfolgung vor allem hinsichtlich Prävention, Verfahrensökonomie und des Erreichens guter „statistischer“ Ergebnisse zum Ziel gesetzt haben. Gleichzeitig wächst das Bedürfnis nach holistischen, normativen, abstrakt-theoretischen und vergleichenden wissenschaftlichen Analysen der folgenden modernen Methoden der Strafjustizhandhabung und ihrer Herausforderungen: der administrativen Kriminalitätsprävention sowie der ermessensbasierten Strafverfolgung und Verfahrenserledigung; der Anwendung fortgeschrittener und hochkomplexer Technologien in den Bereichen Kriminalitätskontrolle und Strafjustiz; der neuen Formen alternativer Konfliktbewältigung einschließlich Mediation und plea bargaining; der informellen soft law- und compliance-Programme als Vorgehen bei Wirtschaftskriminalität; sowie anderer Verfahrenstechniken zur Effektivitäts- und Effizienzsteigerung, Verkürzung, Vereinfachung und eventuell Vermeidung des herkömmlichen Ermittlungs- und Gerichtsverfahrens. Die Forschung der Otto-Hahn-Gruppe soll die „alternativen“ und „informellen“ Kriminalitätskontrollmethoden und Strafjustizmechanismen, die sich in vielen nationalen Rechtsordnungen unterschiedlicher Rechtstraditionen sowie auf internationaler Ebene kontinuierlich entwickeln und oft mit Blick vor allem auf ihre soziale Legitimität und Probleme des effektiven Menschenrechtsschutzes in Frage gestellt werden, in einem rechtsvergleichenden Kontext und methodologisch in einer normativen und modellbasierten Weise untersuchen.
Die Forschungsgruppe beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle von räumlichen Kontexten in der kriminologischen Forschung. Weite Bereiche der Kriminalität wie zum Beispiel Gewaltdelikte, Einbruchsdiebstähle oder Vandalismus sind in konkreten geographischen Räumen verortet. Kriminalität ist in Großstädten häufiger und stark auf bestimmte Stadtviertel und Mikro-Räume konzentriert. Warum leiden einige Städte und Wohngebiete unter einer hohen Kriminalitätsbelastung, und wie wirkt sich Kriminalität auf den sozialen Zusammenhalt und die weitere Entwicklung von Stadtvierteln aus? Wir wenden innovative Ansätze zur Erforschung der Ursachen und Folgewirkungen von Kriminalität in räumlichen Kontexten an und betrachten unterschiedliche Ebenen, von städtischen Mikro-Räumen und Stadtvierteln bis zu größeren gesellschaftlichen Kontexten.