Improvements to Regulations on Intelligence Services Needed

Improvements to Regulations on Intelligence Services Needed

A number of experts, including Freiburg legal scholar Ralf Poscher, have criticized the draft bill presented by the German federal parliament (Bundestag) to amend the law of the Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND). At a Bundestag hearing, Poscher ex­plained that segments of the new regulations have failed to meet constitutional requirements.

Virtual Reality and Crime Research

Virtual Reality and Crime Research

A group of scientist from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law travelled to Philadelphia for the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology. They showcased the novel virtual reality environments currently being used in our research.

Interdisciplinary Constitutional Research

Interdisciplinary Constitutional Research

Freiburg researchers apply for Cluster of Excellence

A group of researchers from the University of Freiburg, the Max Planck Institute, and the Walter Eucken Institute are applying for a Cluster of Excellence to conduct top-level research on constitutional issues. The initiators are the legal scholars Matthias Jestaedt and Andreas Voßkuhle.

What use are Punishments?

What use are Punishments?

ARTE films documentary with Max Planck researcher Philipp Hirsch
If you do something wrong, you get punished. But do punishments really accomplish what we want them to? This question is explored in a documentary produced by the German-French television channel ARTE. Experts from the fields of criminology, psychology, and law voice their views. Among them: criminal law theorist Philipp Alexander Hirsch, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg.

Independent Research Groups

Personality, Identity, and Crime
Max Planck Research Group
Space, Contexts, and Crime
Max Planck Research Group
Criminal Law Theory
Max Planck Research Group

Call for Papers

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology – Special Issue

Bringing Technology to Justice Involved Youth: Applying Virtual Reality, Smartphone Apps, and Wearables to Assessment and Treatment
Organization: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law together with the Institute of Education and Child Studies of Leiden University
Deadline: December 31, 2023
Conference Gender & Crime – Structures, causes and conditions of gender-based violence
April 25–26, 2024 • Göttingen/Germany
Organization: Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e. V., Deutscher Juristinnenbund, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Deadline: November 30, 2023

Events

Theorizing Criminal Law

Please note: The event was canceled (postponed to 2024). The new date will be communicated in due time
Dec 3, 2023 - Dec 4, 2023
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Israel

Die Entzauberung der juridischen Welt: Der Beitrag Hans Kelsens zum Rechtsdenken

Dec 6, 2023 06:15 PM - 08:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
University of Freiburg, Room: Lecture room 1199, University building I

Epistemic and Criminal Justice: The Economy of Witness Credibility in German Criminal Procedural Law

Dec 14, 2023 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Freiburg/Germany, Fürstenbergstr. 19, Room: Seminar room (F 113) | Guests are welcome; please register

The Unreliable Human Mind: False Memories and Biased Judgments in the Context of Legal Decision Making

Jan 24, 2024 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Freiburg/Germany, Fürstenbergstr. 19, Room: Seminar room (F 113) | Guests are welcome; please register

Meet the Researchers


The Directors

The Directors

Tatjana Hörnle, Jean-Louis van Gelder, and Ralf Poscher – the Institute’s directors – introduce their research departments and explain why the Max Planck Institute is one of the top addresses for international researchers in the fields of criminal law, public law, and criminology.
Dominik Gerstner, Postdoc, De­part­ment of Criminology

Dominik Gerstner, Postdoc, De­part­ment of Criminology

“How can virtual reality experiments help us to better understand the behavior of burglars?”
Sofiya Kartalova, Postdoc, Department of Public Law

Sofiya Kartalova, Postdoc, Department of Public Law

“What is the mysterious adhesive that helps the Member States of the European Union stick together?”
Ivó Coca-Vila, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

Ivó Coca-Vila, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

“What types of behavior should be criminalized in western democratic states?”
Clara Rigoni, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

Clara Rigoni, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

“We probably all agree that plurality is a major characteristic of today´s socie­ties. But what role does plurality play in criminal law? And, in particular, how can we guarantee effective crime control in socie­ties that are so diverse?”
Sebastian Kübel, Doctoral Researcher, Department of Criminology

Sebastian Kübel, Doctoral Researcher, Department of Criminology

“How do you view your fu­ture? Although I hope you have optimistic expectations, I am con­vinced that one’s view of the future depends very much on past expe­ri­ence. In my research, I consider how future prospects might sud­denly change after being violently victimized.”
Federica Cop­pola, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

Federica Cop­pola, Senior Researcher, De­part­ment of Criminal Law

“One of the most pressing issues in cur­rent de­bates on criminal justice con­cerns the short­com­ings of imprison­ment. Prison environ­ments can have traumatizing effects on con­fined people. Long prison sentences have no positive impact on relapses on criminal be­hav­ior. Such drawbacks clearly reflect an insti­tu­tional and societal failure to fulfill the individual justice and public safety goals of legal punish­ment.”
James M. An­go­ve, Senior Re­searcher, Department of Public Law

James M. An­go­ve, Senior Re­searcher, Department of Public Law

“When political violence happens, it is tempting to point a finger at those who committed the violence or those who en­couraged them. But, on inspection, modern political violence doesn’t always meet these expectations. Re­mem­ber the ‘Storm’ on the US Capitol build­ing in 2021, which was plausibly encouraged by a powerful political figure.
This indirect enabling of political vio­lence has become known as ‘stochastic terrorism’. We don’t have many philo­soph­i­cal or legal anal­yses of stochastic terrorism yet, and my re­search here at the Institute aims to address this gap.”

Publication Highlights


Why is violence high and persistent indeprived communities? A formal model
Gefahr und allgemeines Lebensrisiko
Trait-specificity versus global positivity: A critical test of alternative sources of assumed similarity in personality judgments.
Handbuch des Verfassungsrechts : Darstellung in transnationaler Perspektive
Journal of Research in Crime and DelinquencyVolume 60 Issue 4, July 2023Special Issue: Crime, Choice, and ContextGuest Editor: Jean-Louis van GelderGuest Editor: Daniel S. Nagin
Plädoyer für die Legalisierung der Leihmutterschaft. Interdisziplinäre Analyse der Problemfelder und Regulierungsvorschlag am Vorbild der Lebendorganspende (Doktorarbeit)
Why It Is Not Unreasonable to Fear Terrorism
Die Schuld des Menschen
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