European criminology as a comparative exercise

In his editorial, David Smith listed comparative research as a key priority for the journal and European criminology. The diversity of European nations regarding various social, institutional, political and cultural features provides rich opportunities for comparison and theory testing. Publishing in the European Journal of Criminology (EJC) necessarily requires one to think comparatively, even if data are drawn from a single country. The goal of this piece is to evaluate the geographical and comparative coverage of EJC articles since 2004. Specifically, I extracted information on the sample and countries named in the abstracts or methods and described patterns of comparative research across empirical articles. I find that, while the majority of studies were based on single-country data, authors often framed the goals and analyses of a given study within the relevant social, political, or institutional European context. However, despite establishing these comparative frameworks and goals, there was still a substantial bias toward case studies and data from certain countries: namely, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany. In essence, this means that the EJC reflects primarily Western European criminology. However, the idea of a truly European criminology, and likewise a journal with similar ambitions, is inherently comparative. For that reason, we must continue to push the boundaries of European criminological theories and knowledge by advocating for comparative designs, high-quality comparable data, and international collaborations beyond Western Europe.