Creating Institutions: Linking the ‘Local’ and the ‘Global’ in the Travel of Crime Policies

Abstract

Institutions represent the ‘technologies of the social.’ They are increasingly modelled and transported to other cultures and societies, and criminal justice institutions—traditional, parochial, and local as they are—are no exception to this. Problems of crime and insecurity have engendered the travelling of institutions from the centre to the periphery and vice versa. This paper will explore the problems which arise from travelling and modelling, and from the transport and creation of institutions in the area of criminal justice. An important feature in the travel of criminal justice institutions is the use of ‘local knowledge’ and its role in this process.

Keywords:

• Linking Social Capital
• Criminal Justice Institutions
• Modes of Knowledge Production
• Applied and Basic Science
• Local Knowledge
• Universalism and Particularism in Criminal Justice

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susanne Karstedt

Susanne Karstedt is Professor of Criminology in the School for Criminology, Education, Sociology and Social Work at Keele University. Her research and publications include cross‐cultural and cross‐national comparisons of violence and corruption, on white collar and middle‐class crime, on democracy, crime and justice, and on transitional justice. Her most recent publications include Special Issues of the British Journal of Criminology and of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Parts of this paper have been published in Hope and Karstedt (2003), and were written during a Visiting Fellowship at RegNet at the Australian National University, 2004.