About the Mannheim Centre

Director:

Professor Tim Newburn
Department of Social Policy

Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6220
Email: t.newburn@lse.ac.uk

The Mannheim Centre for Criminology was set up in November 1990, named in honour of Hermann Mannheim (see Herman Mannheim: a biographical note).

It is a multidisciplinary centre incorporating staff from across LSE and is one of the largest criminological groupings in Europe (see Staff). The centre provides a forum for LSE criminology, including undergraduate and postgraduate courses, funded research, and a large number of conferences, seminars and other public events, including the Joint Seminar Series with the British Society of Criminology (see Events).

Courses

LSE has two interdisciplinary graduate courses in criminology and criminal justice. The MSc Criminal Justice Policy attracts new graduate students as well as academics, police and probation officers, and other criminal justice professionals from the UK and abroad. The MSc Criminology concentrates on the academic study of sociological, legal and psychological aspects of the discipline. Both courses can be taken full-time or part-time. A broad range of Mannheim staff teach on both courses, and criminology students at LSE can expect close involvement with the activities of the centre (see Studying criminology, criminal justice and law at LSE).

An undergraduate course in criminology and social policy begins in 2005/06.

Research

The Mannheim Centre has a large number of MPhil/ PhD students. During term, a weekly research seminar is held to which all MPhil/ PhD students are invited and in which a large number of Mannheim staff participate (see MPhil/ PhD).

The Mannheim Centre also provides the focus for LSE's funded criminological research. Research funding comes from all the major research councils and charities as well as from government. The centre's research seeks to combine a focus on the 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.

Publications from the Mannheim Centre are particularly extensive and varied, including a large number of books, articles in scholarly journals, official reports, working papers and journalism. The centre edits the Clarendon Studies in Criminology series published by Oxford University Press (OUP) (in collaboration with sister centres in Oxford and Cambridge) and the Longman criminology series, and houses the international journal, Criminal Justice. Details of recent Mannheim activities can be found in the Newsletter.

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