ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces cross-cultural criminological efforts to develop and test theories in various international contexts. It explores the benefits and challenges of international criminology. Comparative criminologist James Sheptycki defines the project of comparative criminology as “the attempt to comprehend similarities and differences in patterns of crime in different cultures and contexts.” The chapter explores the differences between collections of countries and their average or general culture. Although comparative criminal justice and criminology is relatively new from an academic standpoint, the need for international cooperation in order to address crime and violence has been recognized for over a century. INTERPOL is one of the largest and most organized law enforcement agencies that investigate crime and its counterpart in the legal realm is the International Criminal Court. Results for criminological research indicate that most general theories of crime are fairly good at explaining crime and deviance across national contexts and with diverse samples.
