21st century transnational crime

The changing nature of crime in the 21st century poses a global challenge, exposing a plethora of new threats and harms. While there has been a reduction in some traditional types of crime, violent crime in particular is a complex and burgeoning problem around the world. A step-change in thinking is required if we are going to successfully tackle emerging crime in the digital age.

Analysing and solving the challenges presented by ever-more sophisticated criminal systems transcend conventional means of measurement and disciplinary boundaries.

Our multidisciplinary team of researchers is focusing on the challenges of tackling transnational crime and proposing evidence-based approaches to solving it. We collaborate with police and other law-enforcement organisations within the criminal justice system to provide evidence-based solutions to pressing problems faced by law enforcement both in the UK, and overseas.

This includes helping to develop new tools to protect vulnerable people, such as blending Artificial Intelligence and Big Data approaches with traditional criminology to safeguard children at risk of sexual exploitation. 

Our goal is to provide an evidence base that aids the reduction of victimisation, the apprehension of more offenders, and a more efficient deployment of limited police and criminal justice resources. All in all, we strive to support the operation more just criminal justice systems across the globe.

Read research by our academics

Birmingham Brief: Online Crime

Professor Woodhams discusses online manipulation

Cutting-edge solutions

How innovative DNA recovery techniques could help catch sex offenders

Empowering survivors

Reporting Sexual Violence in Kenya

Enhancing investigations with crime linkage

Crime linkage and evidence-based forensic psychology by law enforcement

Led by Professor Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay

The IGI Team also work closely with the University's Centre for Crime, Justice and Policing