When violence becomes an acceptable action alternative. An analytic criminology approach to advance our understanding of the causes of violent crime and its prevention.

Why do some people in some circumstances perceive and choose violence as an acceptable action alternative and what violence prevention policies and measures are best suited to address this problem? These are the basic questions we aim to tackle in the research programme.

Our research is guided by an analytic criminology framework focused on mechanism-based explanation as applied in Situational Action Theory.

Its specific hypotheses will be tested in three European contemporary prospective longitudinal studies from Sweden, the UK and Germany.

The empirical part of the project will cover situational aspects of violent event causation, individual development of violence involvement and its key drivers, contextual aspects including processes of social and self-selection, cross-national similarities and differences and their explanation. In addition, we will conduct a meta review of contemporary violence prevention strategies and measures.

Against this a core aim of our program is to transform this knowledge into guidance for the creation of a foundation for the development of an effective violence prevention policy.

We believe that an analytic turn in mainstream criminology would not only help to better explain the phenomena of violent crime and its expressions but that this would also provide various actors tasked with developing violence prevention policy a stronger understanding towards the targeting of the social conditions that drives people’s involvement in violent crimes.