footprint fingerprint

About us

Leading Criminology Research

The white collar criminal is neither a political offender nor a rebel. He exploits the weaknesses of society rather than rebelling against its iniquities - Hermann Mannheim, 1965

The Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology  and Criminal Justice is a forum for scholars across the Departments of LSE  to engage in research and support teaching of criminology. Members come from the Departments of Law, Sociology, Social Psychology, Social Policy and Methodology. 

Herman Mannheim

The Centre is named after Herman Mannheim and was inaugurated in 1990.  Mannheim had a long association with LSE  from his first appointment in 1935 as an honorary part-time lecturer in criminology.

His foundational work  was the understanding of the relationships of sociology to criminal science and penology in its legal setting at a time  when the scientific study of crime and the criminal was in its infancy.  

He was to hold the first readership in criminology in the UK  appointed by the University of London in 1946.  The naming is in recognition of his legacy of research and teaching as well as his activities on behalf of various organizations interested in criminal reform.

Leading criminology research

It is a multidisciplinary centre incorporating staff from across the School as well as attracting visitors from several European institutions most recently, Bochum University and the Finnish Police College.

The centre's research seeks to combines key criminological and policy issues of the day with a longer-term interest in basic research and theoretical developments. The centre seeks to pay equal regard to questions of theory and to sophisticated empirical analysis; wherever possible it aims to integrate the two.

Research focus

The Centre has been fortunate to have had many of the key figures in British Criminology amongst its members including the late Stan Cohen and the late Terry Morris as well as the still very active Professors Paul Rock, Robert Reiner and David Downs. Robert’s writing on policing, Paul’s on victims and David’s on prisons make up key texts on criminology reading lists.  Other members of Mannheim have been instrumental in significant and pioneering work on gender and race in the justice system, suicide, drugs, social disorder and deviance.

Check back later for our latest Twitter updates.