Department of Criminology


Research areas

The Department of Criminology is the oldest research centre of the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It was established in 1955 on the initiative of Professor Stanisław Batavia, an outstanding scholar and founder of the Polish school of criminology, and became a leading institution of criminological research in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe that set new research trends. The empirical research conducted by the Department was interdisciplinary, taking into account various perspectives: legal, sociological, psychological, pedagogical and medical. The key issues addressed by researchers included the diagnosis of crime in Poland, with special emphasis on the characteristics of crime categories and their perpetrators, juvenile crime, repeat offending, alcoholism and social maladjustment of children and young people. Many of the conducted studies were longitudinal. The empirical research resulted in many valuable publications and studies, which are still an important source of data in comparative analyses. Activity, academic integrity and correct methodology have always been and still are the hallmarks of the Department.

The Department of Criminology conducts theoretical and – first of all – empirical analysis of the challenges faced by contemporary criminology. The purpose of this work is to formulate a way of rationally solving social problems that will contribute to reducing crime in a rapidly changing society. We address the issues of variability in the definition of criminal behaviour and variability in the concept of criminalisation. We also undertake a science-based discussion of the response to crime and attempt to assess what needs to change in practice to move away from incarceration penalties. Staff at the Department investigate sanctions and rehabilitation programmes, while also focusing on the institutions of restorative justice and probation. The subject of research and analysis undertaken in the Institute is also the phenomenon of victimisation and the position of the victim in the process of serving a sentence, as well as some specific groups of offenders and victims, such as juveniles, adolescents and foreigners. We also study new criminal phenomena in connection with technological changes. The employees of the Department of Criminology have been involved for years in the work of legislative commissions and drafting teams preparing amendments to legal acts.

The Department of Criminology is the publisher of a leading criminology periodical published since 1960: the formerly annual and now semi-annual Archives of Criminology. It has received 20 points in the rankings of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The staff of the Department of Criminology also make up the editorial team of the Bulletin of Criminology (formerly the Bulletin of the Polish Society of Criminology named after Prof. Stanisław Batavia).

The most recent achievements of the Department’s staff include a monograph published in 2013 entitled Socio-political contexts of contemporary crime in Poland (Academic Publishing House Sedno), which is the culmination of the grant entitled “Crime and its control in social and political reality”.

In 2015, an English-language version of the book was published, entitled Criminality and Criminal Justice in Contemporary Poland: Sociopolitical Perspectives published by Ashgate (now: Routledge). In 2017, another long-term grant conducted in the Department was crowned with the monograph The Crime of Foreigners: Legal, criminological and practical aspects edited by W. Klaus, K. Laskowska and I. Rzeplińska (Scientific Publishing House Scholar).

In 2017, we started research under a three-year grant awarded by the National Science Centre on the emergence and development of criminal careers. This study marks a return to the tradition of longitudinal research, as it is based on materials collected over a dozen years ago as part of studies on juvenile delinquency. Since 2018, we have been conducting another two projects funded by the National Science Centre. Under the first grant, we are investigating issues at the intersection of migration and security, looking at the criminalisation of migration-related behaviour, its causes and consequences. Under the second grant, we study the victimisation of homeless people in Poland.

Since 2018, within the research topic “Criminology in the face of the challenges of changing societies”, the Department of Criminology has carried out research on a range of issues relating not only to the perpetrator of a crime (we pay particular attention to the crime of women and the problem of pornography), but also to the victim of a criminal act, in order to capture the important aspect of victimisation. Criminology has two faces after all.

On the one hand, it involves the study of the perpetrators: the reasons why they commit criminal acts, their motives, the reasons why they acted and the results of their actions. On the other hand, it draws attention to the person harmed by the crime. This trend is an increasingly important topic in the work of Polish researchers who analyse the effects of crime on victims both in relation to the victim’s psyche, and in the context of their proper functioning in social reality. Another branch of our research is the issue of juvenile offenders, including the issue of implementing the goals, directives and principles of dealing with juveniles in the practice of juvenile courts. We also study questions related to the execution of prison sentences. An important strand of our research is still the various issues of population migration.


Topics for individual research in 2018

  • Konrad Buczkowski, PhD – “Pornography as deviant behaviour: An outline of issues”
  • Witold Klaus, PhD, Prof. INP PAN – “Violence against migrants: Analysis of the problem”
  • Prof. Irena Rzeplińska – “The right to asylum: An ethnographic and criminological analysis”
  • Monika Szulecka, MA – “The functioning of official social control in the area of international mobility”.
  • Paulina Wiktorska, PhD – “Criminological aspects of imprisonment for unintentional offenders”
  • Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska, MA – “Analysis of the functioning of auxiliary institutions of juvenile courts: The implementation of the court order to prepare a community interview or a diagnostic opinion”.
  • Dagmara Woźniakowska-Fajst, PhD – “Women’s criminal careers”

Current research grants

From 2017 to 2020, the Department of Criminology of the INP PAS was implementing a research project from the funds of the National Science Center entitled “Mechanisms of emergence and development of criminal careers”, under the leadership of Professor Irena Rzeplinska (contract no. UMO-2016/21/B/HS5/02060). The objective of the project is to gather knowledge about why some offenders commit crimes on multiple occasions, as well as to identify mechanisms and risk factors that are slightly different for each generation. One way to get insight into this area is to conduct longitudinal research, oriented towards following up on the lives of juvenile offenders (catamnesis) and the criminal and social past of adult offenders (anamnesis).

From 2018 to 2021, the Department is implementing a research grant from the funds of the National Science Center entitled “Ensuring security and public order as a justification for criminalisation of migration” under the management of Witold Klaus, PhD, Professor INP PAN (contract no. UMO-2017/25/B/HS5/02961). The objective of the project is to study the ways of incorporating elements of criminal law and its instruments into migration law in Poland and to define the effects of these actions. The inclusion of the tools hitherto used by criminal law into migration law through the criminalisation of certain behaviours typical of migration, as well as the use of criminal law institutions (such as imprisonment and the use of preventive measures) as new strategies for controlling migrants is called “criminalisation of migration” (crimmigration). This process takes place both through legislation and in the practice of state authorities’ actions.

In 2018, there was also a pilot study funded by the National Science Center entitled “Victimisation of homeless people in Poland”. It is led by Witold Klaus, PhD, Professor INP PAN. The aim of the study is to establish to what extent homeless people are at risk of becoming victims of crime. Within the framework of the research, we are going to identify the types of crimes which are most often committed against homeless people, the general characteristics of perpetrators and the way they act. In the pilot stage, the research is conducted in the Warsaw agglomeration.

From 2014 to 2017, the Department of Criminology was the leader of the Consortium (along with the University of Białystok and Medcore Sp. z o.o.) implementing the project funded by the National Center for Research and Development entitled “SIC – Modular Multipurpose Foreigner Identification System with a risk analysis module for victims of human trafficking”. The goal of the project was to conduct unique research on illegal behaviours of foreigners, and then to introduce the results into the IT system and into the training system for the Border Guard in order to improve the effectiveness of this organisation in combating potential threats related to migration.

Completed research projects:

  • From 2017 to 2020, the Department of Criminology of the INP PAS was implementing a research project from the funds of the National Science Centre entitled “Mechanisms of emergence and development of criminal careers”, under the leadership of Professor Irena Rzeplinska (contract no. UMO-2016/21/B/HS5/02060). The objective of the project was to gather knowledge about why some offenders commit crimes on multiple occasions, as well as to identify the mechanisms and risk factors that are slightly different for each generation. One way to get insight into this area is to conduct longitudinal research, oriented towards following up on the lives of juvenile offenders (catamnesis) and the criminal and social past of adult offenders (anamnesis).
  • From 2018 to 2021, the Department was implementing a research grant from the funds of the National Science Center entitled “Ensuring security and public order as a justification for criminalisation of migration” under the management of Witold Klaus, PhD, Professor INP PAN (contract no. UMO-2017/25/B/HS5/02961). The objective of the project was to study the ways of incorporating elements of criminal law and its instruments into migration law in Poland and to define the effects of these actions. The inclusion of the tools hitherto used by criminal law into migration law through the criminalisation of certain behaviours typical of migration, as well as the use of criminal law institutions (such as imprisonment and the use of preventive measures) as new strategies for controlling migrants is called “criminalisation of migration” (crimmigration). This process takes place both through legislation and in the practice of state authorities’ actions.
  • In 2018, there was also a pilot study funded by the National Science Center entitled “Victimisation of homeless people in Poland”. It was led by Witold Klaus, PhD, Professor INP PAN. The aim of the study was to establish to what extent homeless people are at risk of becoming victims of crime.
  • Within the framework of the research, we identified the types of crimes which are most often committed against homeless people, the general characteristics of perpetrators and the way they act. In the pilot stage the research was conducted in the Warsaw agglomeration.
  • From 2014 to 2017, the Department of Criminology was the leader of the Consortium (along with the University of Białystok and Medcore Sp. z o.o.) implementing the project funded by the National Center for Research and Development entitled “SIC – Modular Multipurpose Foreigner Identification System with a risk analysis module for victims of human trafficking”. The goal of the project was to conduct unique research on illegal behaviours of foreigners, and then to introduce the results into the IT system and into the training system for the Border Guard in order to improve the effectiveness of this organisation in combating potential threats related to migration.
  • The aim of the project entitled “The experience of Poles deported from Great Britain and their contact with the justice system” is to diagnose the problem of post-deportation and post-extradition experiences of Poles in Poland and Great Britain who have been deported from Great Britain (as well as other European Union countries) as a result of their previous contact with the justice system. In particular, the study focuses on two groups:
    • people who have been convicted by British courts of committing an offence in the United Kingdom and who, after serving their sentences, have been deported to Poland following an order by a British court or a decision by the Secretary of State;
    • people for whom the Polish authorities have sent a European Arrest Warrant (EAW), that is, who have been returned from the UK (or other EU countries) to Poland under special extradition procedures as a result of having previously committed a crime in Poland.
  • The project is carried out between 2019 and 2022 under the direction of Witold Klaus, PhD, Professor INP PAN. It is funded by the National Science Centre (Harmonia 10 competition) and partnered by Edge Hill University (Dr Agnieszka Martynowicz).
  • The 2019-2020 research also includes a project entitled “Crime among the Elderly: A pilot study of final convictions in selected judicial districts”, funded by the National Science Center (MINIATURE3 competition). This is a pilot study of criminal case files of persons legally convicted of a crime committed over 60 years of age in selected court districts. The research includes the profiling of 60+ offenders and analysis of the acts committed by them: the ways and circumstances in which they were committed and the response of the justice system, i.e. the type of sentence. The findings of the pilot study will provide insight into the crime of the elderly and the courts’ policy towards this group, as well as identify factors that increase the risk of 60+ offenders coming into conflict with the law. The project is managed by Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska, PhD.

Individual research topics in 2020

Criminology and the challenges of changing societies

Economic criminal law outside the Code
Konrad Buczkowski, PhD

Victimisation and crime of socially excluded persons
Witold Klaus, PhD, Prof. INP PAN

Issues related to migration control as the subject of decisions by common courts
Monika Szulecka, MA

Functioning of the support system for persons affected by domestic violence
Paulina Wiktorska, PhD

Juvenile delinquency: analysis of trends and changes over the past 20 years
Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska, PhD

Minors as perpetrators of bullying
Dagmara Woźniakowska-Fajst, PhD

Directives for court sentencing versus imprisonment
Dominik Wzorek, MA

Institute of Law Studies PAS
Polish Academy of Sciences
ul. Nowy Świat 72 (Pałac Staszica)
00-330 Warszawa
room 248, II p.
tel. (22)65-72-751
Office hours: Thursdays from 9.00-11.00
e-mail: kryminologia@inp.pan.pl