Criminal Law and Criminology

Criminal law is of great importance in any State and society. The Department of Criminal Law and Criminology covers the subject in its entirety. It is dedicated to providing high-quality, ethics-based education for students seeking to work as legal practitioners in positions of responsibility in national authorities, public service, or other parts of the community. The Department strives to further enhance and develop criminal law and criminal procedure, including doctrinal research, international, transnational, and European criminal law, as well as policy-making, including by providing advice to the legislature.

Criminology is an indispensable part of the Department. The Vienna School of Criminology, which is characterised by its close integration of substantive criminal law, empirical criminology and science-based criminalistics, enables an approach to criminal law – unique in Austria – that combines normative and empirical perspectives.

The Department hosts the ALES-Austrian Centre for Law Enforcement Sciences (Research Centre for Police and Judicial Sciences), the Research Centre for Legal Psychology, the Centre for Law and Institutional Economics, and the Centre for Economic and Financial Criminal Law.
 

It also maintains close ties with the ÖGSK—the Austrian Society for Criminal Law and Criminology and the Association of Austrian Research Assistants in Criminal Law and Criminology.