Applied research to prevent crime and reduce fear in Skåne, Sweden

About the project

The project aims to reduce crime and fear in Malmö and the Skåne region through research and development on methods for crime prevention. Each semester one or more projects that can contribute to this aim is identified. The idea is to quickly deliver analysis and produce knowledge that can result in more efficient work to reduce crime and fear.

Background

Crime and fear have received a lot of attention in recent year, not least in the city of Malmö where crime has yielded headlines on shootings and bomb attacks, and smaller, but nevertheless important, headlines on key crime preventive projects. At the same time, it is a fact that most of the work that is done to reduce crime and fear in Sweden lack proper evaluation, and that we, in fact, know very little about whether what is done is efficient. To improve the efficiency of crime prevention there is a need for more research and development on what works, what doesn't, and how we can develop our methods to work better.

Project description and organisation

The project has been made possible through a donation from the insurance company Länsförsäkringar Skåne, enabling the project to run for five years to do applied research that can support better crime prevention and fear reduction. The project is managed through the pre-existing collaboration between the department of criminology at Malmö Uni and the Malmö Police department. The project is placed at the department of criminology, Malmö University. The project group is lead by associate professor Manne Gerell (Criminology), and currently has three other members, Carolina Ellgren (Epidemiology), Martin Boldt (Computer science) and Anton Borg (Computer Science). The researchers have the exclusive right to decide on the research, but the topics to be researched are discussed with the police beforehand to ensure that the questions covered are relevant to the people who work with it in practice. Currently, the work is exclusive to the Malmö Police department, but it may be expanded to other police departments and/or other actors such as municipalities in the future.