International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 8

The Art of Criminology in a Hostile Environment
course in order to obtain a social science diploma, before undertaking more specialist
training at the Home Office.
In both countries, many of these courses are not directly linked to criminology,
despite having some relationship to it. This trend generally results in improved
professional training, producing greater professional competence among the clinical
criminologists that are social workers and probation officers.
7. The two systems are deeply entrenched and almost incomparably different.
Nevertheless, in both systems, teaching of a multidisciplinary science such as
criminology could benefit from the creation of university criminology institutes
(naturally, with the appropriate adaptations for each system). This suggestion applies to
the Anglo-Saxon as well as the continental system. However, given the current situation
in Anglo-Saxon countries, it would have been more logical to distinguish between the
criminology taught “inside” and “outside” universities rather than that taught “inside”
and “outside” criminology institutes. This latter classification has nevertheless been
retained here to facilitate comparison between various national datasets.
By using this division and by means of this study, we hope to emphasize that each
system could benefit from drawing more than they have done so far upon study of the
other’s respective advantages.
It seems that such study could lead to a greater number of reforms than have been
made to date. With this in mind, international exchange of knowledge and experts,
encouraged by the International Society for Criminology, can only be beneficial.
Criminology institutes are proposing to unite teaching of criminology, the
criminological sciences, and sometimes also criminal law within a single institution.
Their organization varies widely: they may be public or private, taking the form of
institutes or universities.
As regards their public or private nature, there is quite a clear distinction between
Anglo-Saxon institutes and continental European institutes.
Anglo-Saxon institutes are usually private. This is how the Institute for the Study and
Treatment of Delinquency, founded in London as a private company in 1931 and initially
an open clinic for examining delinquents of all ages, later became an evening school
dedicated to social studies, with the fourth year focusing on criminology (these courses
depended on the Extra-Mural Department of the University of London and thus on the
institution’s extension learning service). 1 In the United States, where higher education
establishments are too numerous and too diverse for any generalization to be made, it is
possible to single out professional development institutes, which target professionals and
depend on both the university and the State. One example is the Institute of Correctional
Administration, created under the auspices of the General Studies College of George
Washington University, which acts as a professional development centre for prison and
probation service staff.
Although the institute model is not very developed in Anglo-Saxon countries, 3 the
same cannot be said of continental countries, where institutes are generally (but not
always) public. This is the case in Austria (the Vienna and Graz institutes), Belgium (the
criminology departments of the State universities of Ghent and Liège), Brazil (the
institute of the Federal District University), France (the Paris and provincial institutes),
Italy (the Rome institute), Turkey (the Istanbul and Ankara institutes), and Yugoslavia
(the Sarajevo, Ljubljana and Belgrade institutes). All of these are public institutes.
Along with these institutes, the criminology department of the Free University of
Leuven and the criminological sciences department of the Free University of Brussels
should be mentioned. These are private, but like the institutes listed above, they are
university establishments.
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