UWB criminologists examine what drives people to crime. International team won major grant for that

Why do people turn to crime and why do some end up behind bars repeatedly? An international team of researchers, including criminologists from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, examines the role of family, the state, work and culture across societies from the Czech Republic to India.

In Norway, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Nigeria, India and Colombia, researchers will examine the life stories of people sentenced to unconditional imprisonment. In each country, they will conduct repeated interviews with fifty incarcerated individuals, as well as a survey of more than 1,000 male and female prisoners. “We are interested in how the life stories of convicted men and women differ across various contexts and what they have in common,” explained criminologist Václav Walach from the Faculty of Arts at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He added: “We will focus on how convicted individuals narrate the events and decisions that led them to prison, and to what extent these experiences can be related to the broader prison population.”

The research findings may have a direct impact on how states approach crime prevention and work with offenders. “We plan to publish recommendations for policymakers and for those who implement penal policy in practice. This mainly concerns staff of the Prison Service and the Probation and Mediation Service, as our findings will help them better design treatment programmes and work with convicted individuals,” added criminologist Martina Novopacká.

The main aim of the research is to understand how a person’s criminal trajectory changes across societies. The project is unique in that, for the first time, it will generate genuinely global knowledge about the factors that lead to crime. “Family life looks one way in Colombia and another in India. The nature of the Czech state shapes families in certain ways, whereas the Turkish state shapes them in others. The institution of prison, of course, exists both in Norway and in the Czech Republic, but its specific character is what affects the kind of people who leave prison,” Václav Walach added. “We are not looking for excuses; we want to help create penal policy that truly works,” he concluded.

The project, titled CRIMLIFE, is led by experts from the University of Oslo in Norway, who, together with their international colleagues, succeeded in a highly competitive call of the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC supports research with significant societal impact. The project will also produce a digital platform with documents available to experts worldwide.