Institutional reform can inspire research

Abstract

For more than fifty years, Finland’s National Research Institute of Legal Policy, the main seat of Finnish criminology, was affiliated with the Ministry of Justice. From the beginning of 2015, the NRILP was integrated to the University of Helsinki. Within the university, the newly emerging Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy is part of the Department of Social Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences. There were multiple reasons to why the Finnish government decided on this move. An important aim was to increase scientific and inter-disciplinary cooperation and so to strengthen research. The basic direction of institutional movement was from government to academia. Inevitably, this will lead also to an increasing integration of research and teaching. I see this development as highly welcome as it will ultimately improve and boost research as well. Very likely more criminological theses will be written by students. Also, more interdisciplinary cooperation is likely to take place. Much of the research emerging from the new basis will no doubt have considerable policy relevance. The Finnish reform has inspired many researchers, including myself. Mainly because of the energizing challenges of the new situation, I have decided to step down as JSSCCP Editor eight months earlier than scheduled. The next Editor takes office from 1st of May, 2015. With these thoughts, I thank the JSSCCP authors, reviewers, Advisory Board members, readers, the highly professional team at Taylor & Francis, and members of the Council, for support. Looking back to the two years and four months of my editorship, I hope that both readers and authors have recognized a sustained effort at improvement and reform. The Advisory Board was reconstituted; broader internationality emerged as a goal; the scope statements were re-formulated and the layout changed; the new short report format was introduced; and an online submission system is being developed. Of course, much work remains to be done. Maybe in the future, the JSSCCP could be even further opened to the international research community, just like Acta Sociologica, Youth – Nordic Journal of Youth Research, and Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs are open to the world. Why should criminology be, in this respect, different from sociology, youth research and alcohol studies? Following the path of even greater international presence and interdisciplinary openness would certainly help rather than harm Nordic criminology. However, such a step would require more resources, probably to an extent that can happen only if the general institutional structures of Nordic criminological cooperation are also re-thought and strengthened.