News and activities
2026
Why should we care that judges use Microsoft Copilot?
September 1st, 2026
Camilla Løvschall Langeland and Thea Myrvang have written an op-ed in Rett24 where they question why processes of digitalization receive so little political attention in Norway.
They argue that there should be a greater focus on digital independence in processes of digitalization, and that a clear strategy for the strengthening of institutional leeway is needed.
Link to the article in Norwegian
Private numbers, public issues
May 7th, 2026
Global indices measuring crime, produced by private actors such as NGO think tanks, are increasing in size and usage. How do they produce their numbers and how is this trend different from traditional crime statistics?
Project research assistant Miriam Revheim Akhoundzadeh, Heidi Mork Lomell, and Katja Franko presented the work on their article on crime-related indices at the Nordic Research Council for Criminology research seminar in Halden.
Midway assessment for Camilla Løvschall Langeland
March 16th, 2026
Project PhD candidate Camilla Løvschall Langeland presented her doctoral project: Making knowledge work. A study of how intelligence analysts adapt to knowledge-based policing
Midway assessment for Thea Myrvang
March 11th, 2026
Project PhD candidate Thea Myrvang presented her doctoral project: Norwegian courts and digitalisation
The Cambridge Crime Harm Index - a critical assessment
January 23rd, 2026
Global crime and justice indexes are increasingly becoming an influential mode of expert communication and policy making. Such Crime Harm indexes represent a radical change in the way crime statistics are produced, presented and used.
In this seminar, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen Lars Holmberg offered a critical assessment of the Cambridge Crime Harm Index, and its logics and methods of quantifying harm.
2025
Platformization of criminal justice
November 19th, 2025
What happens when state infrastructure is built on platforms? Does it matter if they are public or private? This seminar explored how digital platforms have become an essential component of the state bureaucratic infrastructure.
Speakers and contributors included Simon Egbert, Pete Fussey, Jenny Maria Lundgaard, Claes Lyth Walsø, Camilla Løvschall Langeland, and Katja Franko.
Crime as a service: when social media becomes the torpedo
November 16th, 2025
What responsibility lies on the providers of a service that acts as a marketplace for the ordering of violent acts? Should this responsibility be more clearly defined through legislation? Katja Franko and Heidi Mork Lomell have written an article in Aftenposten.
Link to the article in Norwegian
Special Issue: Private Economies of Knowledge in Criminal Justice
August 3rd, 2026
Katja Franko and Heidi Mork Lomell featured as guest editors on a Special Issue of the journal Theoretical Criminology. The Special Issue aims to provide a better understanding of, and insights into, the role of private expertise in contemporary criminal justice. Their contributions included the article Outsourcing the brains: The epistemic power of consultancies in criminal justice, discussing the influence and active role of private consultants in knowledge production.
Camilla Løvschall Langeland and Thea Myrvang wrote a book review of The Digital Revolution: A Short History of an Ideology by Gabriele Balbi.
CRIMKNOW at the Criminology Conference
May 28th, 2025
CRIMKNOW participated in this year’s Criminology Conference, hosted by the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law (IKRS) at the University of Oslo in late May. The project organized two panels that explored the production of criminal justice knowledge and the digitalisation of the justice field.
The first panel, “Digitising the Justice Field: Ideals and Realities”, featured a roundtable discussion with Aleksander Solhøi Lutz (Kripos), Arne-Martin H. Sørli (judge at the Borgarting Court of Appeal), and Christin Wathne (AFI). The discussion was moderated by Heidi Mork Lomell (CRIMKNOW).
The second panel, “Changing Knowledge Regimes in Criminal Policy”, brought together the full CRIMKNOW team. Birgitte Ellefsen, Heidi Lomell, Katja Franko, Camilla Løvchall Langeland, Thea Myrvang, and master's students Ninni Zinober and Tone Ivarjord Sommerseth presented preliminary findings from their ongoing research.
This event was in Norwegian.
Link to the event (in Norwegian)
What Knowledge Base Do Politicians Rely On When Allocating Resources?
June 6th, 2025
An ever-growing range of standards, indicators, and other measurable criteria forms the foundation of today’s politics. But how can decision-makers navigate this landscape when faced with hundreds of different indicators?
At this event, Paul Beaumont from NUPI presented his research project “Navigating in the Age of Indicators.” The project investigates how public and private actors, civil society, and the state navigate an era shaped by indicators in global governance.
Old Ideals and Practices in Policing in a New Wrapping
March 11th, 2025
Heidi Mork Lomell and Birgitte Ellefsen have been interviewed about their research on the development of intelligence in the police. They share insights into how intelligence has been part of police work for several hundred years, and how the concept has evolved into a key tool for knowledge-based decision-making and crime prevention.
The Knowledge Base of Police Reforms
March 12th, 2025
In recent years, the field of justice in Norway and internationally has undergone extensive reforms and digitalization processes. The knowledge base behind these reforms—and the digital tools that are part of them—is increasingly being produced by private actors. How has this affected the police?
Professor of Police Science Birgitte Ellefsen (PHS) and Professor of Criminology Heidi Mork Lomell (UiO) spoke during the second "Research Hour" at the Norwegian Police University College about the actors and types of knowledge that have shaped the development of the police over time.
This event was conducted in Norwegian.
2024
The Use of Knowledge in Swedish Criminal Policy, 1853–2024
December 6th, 2024
Professor Johan Edman from Stockholm University is visiting IKRS and CRIMKNOW to present a research project on the use of knowledge in Swedish criminal policy from 1853 to 2024. The aim of the project is to analyze what kinds of knowledge claims politicians have made when speaking on criminal justice issues—and whether, and if so how, these claims have changed over time. The project offers a historical perspective on contemporary criminal policy.
This event was conducted in Norwegian and Swedish.
An Evidence-Based Criminal Policy? Dialogues Between Criminal Law and Criminology
19th June, 2024
What do we need knowledge about punishment for? To what extent does empirical research contribute to the foundations of criminal law and criminal policy? On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Law, participants reflected on the role of criminology in shaping criminal law and policy. The department was established with the expectation that it would provide empirical research to inform the development of criminal law. However, already in 1987, Nils Christie noted that criminology had failed to meet this goal and had instead become more value-oriented.
Today, we see a renewed interest in evidence-based criminal policy, yet questions remain about what this knowledge base is actually built on—and whether we are emerging from the "darkness" that Professor Johs. Andenæs once referred to. The seminar gathered a number of speakers, including Director of Public Prosecutions Jørn Sigurd Maurud, Professor Alf Petter Høgberg, Professor Katja Franko, Professor Heidi Mork Lomell, Professor May-Len Skilbrei, and Professor Synnøve Ugelvik, all of whom highlighted different aspects of today’s knowledge base for criminal policy.
This event was conducted in Norwegian.
Get in touch with Camilla Løvschall Langeland for more information about the project.
Seminar on the History of Knowledge and Document Analysis
March 15th, 2024
The event featured presentations by Hilde Reinertsen, who discussed historical and ethnographic exploration of documents, and David Larsson Heidenblad, who shared insights into the methods of the history of knowledge.
Evidence-based policing in the UK
March 8th, 2024
Digital seminar with Professor Nick Fyfe. In his presentation, Fyfe discussed the emergence of evidence-based policing in the United Kingdom, including key stakeholders and the tensions within the field.
Private economies of knowledge in criminal justice
February 5th-6th, 2024
CRIMKNOW Workshop. Organized in connection with Katja Franko and Heidi Mork Lomell, who are editors of a special issue of Theoretical Criminology. The workshop includes contributions from Björn Karlsson & Vasilis Galis, Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Máximo Sozzo, Lucia Zedner, Samuel Singler, Katerina Hadjimatheou & Peter Fussey, and Thomas Duke Labik Amanquandor.
2023
Democratic Control Over Knowledge: Experiennces from the Norwegian Official Report (NOU) System
September 15th, 2023
A seminar hosted by the CRIMKNOW research project. Cathrine Holst presents her book Expertise, Policy-making and Democracy.
This event was conducted in Norwegian.
About the project
The research project 'Private knowledge, public issues: Digitalization and private economies of knowledge in criminal justice' (CRIMKNOW) addresses a fundamental issue of modern science, namely the boundaries between public and private knowledge. This project asks: What happens to matters of public interest when their knowledge foundations are shaped by private actors?
Criminal justice agencies, in Norway as in most European countries, have in recent years undergone an intense process of digitalization as well as restructuring and reform. Digital technologies, often promoted by management- and IT-consultancies, are redefining the meaning of knowledge and expertise, thereby, redefining and shaping the nature of criminal justice and crime policy. In addition to consultancies, we have also seen a growing prominence of other types of private actors, such as NGOs and think tanks, who are actively using digital technologies in the promotion and dissemination of their expertise.
CRIMKNOW brings focus on the connections between digitalization and privatization and aims to develop an understanding of the role of private expertise in contemporary criminal justice policy development and implementation.
An interdisciplinary approach
CRIMKNOW is an interdisciplinary project combining criminological and socio-legal perspectives with the sociology and history of knowledge, and science and technology studies (STS). Through empirical research on, among other, crime indexes, police reforms and court reform in Norway, the project examines how commercial and private knowledge regimes become encoded into state practices, affecting the understanding of expertise, as well as the nature and quality of decision-making, particularly its transparency and public nature.
Objectives
Privatization of crime control and security has been one of the most salient and intensely debated issues within criminal justice in the last three decades. However, despite this we know quite little about the privatization of knowledge production. CRIMKNOW fills this gap. It is the first systematic attempt to develop an understanding of the role of private expertise in contemporary criminal justice policy development and implementation.
Sub-projects
Work package 1: Policy
In this work package we will examine the production and dissemination of knowledge and statistics by various organizations, think thanks, and NGOs. We will have a special focus on global crime and justice indexes, which is becoming an influential mode of expert communication and policy development, such as Global Terrorism Index (by the Institute for Economics and Peace), the Rule of Law Index (published yearly by World Justice Project) as well the Global Organized Crime Index (produced by the think tank Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime). Who are the experts involved in index production, what is their understanding of knowledge and expertise, as well as strategies for expansion of professional influence on policy making and acquisition of financing? How are data from Norway produced and fed into global data sets, and what is their impact on national policy making?
The national dimension of WP1 will examine calls for tenders as a technology of governance, especially how the mechanisms of demand and supply of knowledge operate in practice, with the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the Police Directorate as the two main cases. What kind of knowledge is in demand by policy makers? Who are the contenders responding to the calls? Who are the winners and what are the justifications of their selection? How are expected outputs of the calls defined and how are they used in policy development? Data collection will consist of document analysis and qualitative interviews with policy makers and bureaucrats involved in the police and court reforms, as well as consultants and other respondents to calls for tenders.
For more information about this work package contact:
Work package 2: The Police
This work package will trace the development of evidence-based policing (EBP) and intelligence-led policing (ILP) as increasingly influential templates for police reform, from its US origins to a global crime policy template and its impact on Norwegian police reform of 2016. This work package will examine the participation of private and public actors, such as academics, consultancies and think tanks, who have played an active role in the development, promotion and implementation of EBP and ILP. In addition to an extensive literature review and interviews with relevant international and national actors, social network analysis will be employed to map the connections between different actors and publications involved in the spread of EBP and ILP.
For more information about this work package:
Further, we will study historic changes in the understanding and providers of knowledge and expertise within the Norwegian police organization. By taking the period 1859–2020 as our point of departure, we will explore also the pre-digital understanding of knowledge and trace the historic emergence and changes in the use of concepts such as 'knowledge', 'evidence' and 'intelligence', as well examine whose voices and expertise is heard, and has shaped (and is shaping), digitalization of the police and other reform processes.
For more information contact:
Work package 3: The Courts
This work package will provide an in-depth analysis of the recent Norwegian reform of the courts, which was adopted in 2020 and proposed to shut down approximately 2/3 of the courts. What were the central arguments in the debates about the reform, its justification and critique? Whose voices and which rationalities have had the most influence on the process? One of the objectives will be to examine the epistemic power positions of different holders of professional expertise, such as judges and legal professionals, legal administrators, economists, politicians and management- and IT-consultants. How does digitalization combined with economic rationalites shape an understanding of justice and its practical implementation? Particular attention will be paid to the concept of the 'digital court life', which has become one of the central ideological footprints of the reform.
Moreover, we will examine how the new techno-legal solutions are implemented in local contexts, including small non-urban communities, in order to explore the tension between local knowledge and global technical and economic templates. What happens to global socio-technical models when they meet local conditions and traditions? The work package will also trace various forms of resistance against the reform within the courts and their professional communities, politicians and local communities. The project examines digitalization not only as a means towards greater court efficiency, but also as heralding a changing understanding of justice in terms of physical distance vs. face-to-face encounters, digital recording vs. oral proceedings, regard for and knowledge of local conditions vs. system consistency and transparency.
For more information:
Advisory board
- Ole Jacob Sending (NUPI)
- Ragna Aarli (Universitetet i Bergen)
- Chris Williams (The Open University)
- Ingrid Olsen (The Norwegian Courts Administration)
- Lucia Zedner (University of Oxford)
- Kjetil Sletteng Ulvik (Ministry of Justice and Public Security)
