Abstract:
This study is based on the experiences of the author in various professional and scholarly areas.
The first experience was my engagement as student assistant in an interdisciplinary study at the University of Tuebingen, directed by Prof. Dr. iur. and Dr. med. Hans Göppinger and sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG), with the title “The Offender in his Social Relationships”. Later on, I became more involved in the structure and details of that study, when promoted to the position as “scholarly assistant respectively as “academic counselor”.
Further experiences were based on my position as professor at multiple German universities, i. e. Bielefeld, Hamburg, Heidelberg and, finally, the University of Tuebingen. In Tuebingen this position was combined with the directorship of the interdisciplinary oriented Institute of Criminology (law, criminology, sociology, psychology, and forensic psychiatry). Additional knowledge and insights were particularly generated by the decade long preparation of my lectures on “Criminology II = Crime in the Life-Course of individuals and groups” and “Criminology III = “Applied Criminology”.
Additional sources for suitable experiences and insights were my experiences as teacher in further education courses for practitioners in various fields, e.g. the “German Justice Academy”, associations for forensic psychology, legal psychology, criminal court aides, juvenile court aides, probation officers, and court aide officers.
Further useful experiences were expert contributions to cases before youth courts, adult criminal courts, and courts for the control of penal execution of sentences. Very useful additional experiences were generated during two positions in practice in the city of Hamburg, i.e. (1) as judge in the penal chamber at the high-court of appeals, and (2) as member of the coordination commission for probation and parole cases.
Among many and various international contacts, the most useful so far was my turn as guest professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin (Southern Island of New Zeeland). There, especially, I could get direct insights to the then famous long-time prospective and multidisciplinary study on “Developmental Criminology”, as directed by Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt.
My criminological thoughts and explanations in this volume are divided in six parts. Part 1 = Statistical and scholarly findings on normality and ubiquitous “crime” among the population in Germany. Part 2 = Selected quantitative results of studies on repeated commission of criminal acts. Part 3 = Recent studies on the difference of occasional versus repeat offending. Part 4 = “Criminal careers” in the “field of tension” between “personal characteristics” versus “interactions dynamics”. Turned otherwise, this could be explained / studied under the perspective of whether static or dynamic models could contribute effectively to a deeper understanding of the interacting processes. Part 5 = Insights to part 4 lead to special questions on interactive elements during the “exit” out of criminal careers. Part 6 = Realization of the always very limited role of punishment and treatment during the control of committing crimes/offenses respectively in the life course of offender social reintegration.
Finally, the volume is providing a very extensive listing of publications on all important scholarly and policy and practice aspects, as treated with in this volume. There is also a note on a further deepening international bibliography.