Welcome to the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

The Institute consists of three research departments: Criminology, Public Law, and Criminal Law. The Department of Criminol­ogy focuses on theory development and the application of novel technologies to study crime and offender rehabilitation, and seeks to connect theory, innovative methods, and technology to policy and practice. The Department of Public Law deals with fundamental questions of constitutional and administrative law based on public security law. It investigates how the legal system can respond to dangers in order to prevent criminal offences and other damage. The Department of Criminal Law conducts re­search into the fundamentals of criminal law, prohibition norm, and criminal penalties in the context of globalization, migration, and the social and cultural fragmentation of societies. The Institute's focus is on basic research, as well as on application re­search due to its interdisciplinary legal, social science and psychological research approach.