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Cambridge Institute of Criminology

University department

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ5025455 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Institute of Criminology is the criminological research institute within the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge. The Institute is one of the oldest criminological research institutes in Europe, and has exerted a strong influence on the development of criminology. Its multidisciplinary teaching and research staff are recruited from the disciplines of law, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology. It is located on the Sidgwick Site in the west of Cambridge, England. The Institute of Criminology building was designed by Allies and Morrison. The Institute is also home to the Radzinowicz Library, which houses the most comprehensive criminology collection in the United Kingdom. The Institute has approximately 50 PhD students, 30-40 M.Phil. students, and 200 M.St students. The Institute also offers courses to Cambridge undergraduates, particularly in law, but also in human social and political sciences and in psychology and behavioural sciences.

History

During World War II, Sir Leon Radzinowicz established the Department of Criminal Science in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cambridge Institute of Criminology” is university department. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cambridge, Institute and Criminology, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current 166-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1959-01-01. For this dossier, Cambridge, Institute and Criminology is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “university department” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5025455. VIAF identifies the subject as 140172959. The Library of Congress control number is n80149017. Authority coordinates are 52.201, 0.111. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cambridge Institute of Criminology”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cambridge Institute of Criminology primary sources, Cambridge Institute of Criminology archive and Cambridge research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cambridge Institute of Criminology”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cambridge Institute of Criminology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.