By Jessica Glynn, University of Manchester

Attending EuroCrim 2026 left me with many new ideas, thoughts, and reflections – both on my own research and on the many exciting projects happening around the world, all with a focus on improving the penal system, preventing the next victim, and improving support and rehabilitative options for people in prison.

This was my first ever visit to Poland, so I thought I would make the most of it and travel out early, before the conference began in Warsaw, to spend a few days in Kraków first. The vibrant Old Town was a great place to start, and even though it was September and 30 degrees, the little market square certainly put me in the mood for Christmas with its trinket stalls and wholesome souvenirs! From Kraków I also took the opportunity to visit the Auschwitz and Birkenau memorials, which stirred up a lot of emotion and I would implore anyone who has not yet visited to embark on this deeply profound experience.

Now turning to the conference itself. EuroCrim is the annual meeting of the European Society of Criminology and one of the largest gatherings of criminologists in Europe. This year, it was held in Warsaw from 9–12 September under the theme ‘Frontiers of Criminology’ – an invitation to examine the frontiers the discipline has already reached, those still ahead, and the lessons of frontier regions, as technological, social, and environmental change reshape both crime and criminal justice. The scale of the conference is huge. There were many parallel sessions running across four days, alongside plenary roundtables on atrocity crimes and transitional justice, on victims of crime and how different vulnerabilities shape support and prevention, and on youth and crime. The programme certainly spanned the breadth of the discipline, and the ESC’s thematic working groups gave the whole event a real sense of scholarly community. I attended the working group pre-conference meeting on Narrative Criminology, as part of my research involves narrative interviews with men in prison. For those interested, narrative criminology is a subfield of criminology that examines how stories – the narratives people tell about themselves, their actions, and their lives – shape criminal behaviour, desistance from crime, and responses to crime. It explores people’s use of narratives to make sense of their own offending and how the stories people tell about who they are affect what they do next. You can find out more about the Narrative Criminology Working Group here: https://escnewsletter.org/archive/narrative-criminology-working-group

When the conference began, it became clear that EuroCrim is very organised, welcoming, and supportive – particularly to Early Career Researchers. Presenters were often met with kind and constructive feedback from the audience, and this environment fostered many fruitful debates, rather than the combative questioning that can make early-career scholars nervous about presenting. I experienced this first-hand during my presentation, which formed part of the panel ‘Working at the Sharp End: Trauma-Informed Interventions with People Who Do Harm’, and centred on professionals’ experiences of delivering trauma-informed therapy to people in prison. The presentation explored the challenge of providing therapeutic care within institutions organised around punishment and control. I explained how professionals valued the service’s ability to create psychological safety, build trust, and support emotional regulation and hope. However, prison violence, limited confidentiality, staff misunderstanding, transfers, and inconsistent throughcare often disrupted progress. The findings highlight the need for trauma-informed principles to be embedded across prison culture, practice, and resettlement support, rather than confined to a single therapeutic service operating against the institutional grain. All in all, EuroCrim 2026 proved a valuable and rewarding event, and I will certainly be attending in future years. The European Society of Criminology’s 27th Annual Conference will be held in Skopje, North Macedonia, from 15–18 September 2027 – and, for those planning further ahead, Dublin in 2028. If anyone would like to hear more about my experiences, or perhaps meet up at the next one, please do get in touch.

Jess is a Postgraduate Researcher and Research Associate in the Department of Criminology at the University of Manchester. With an academic background in Forensic Psychology, her doctoral research examines the experiences of male survivors of abuse in UK prisons, focusing on how institutions can better recognise and support this often-overlooked population. Supervised by Professor David Gadd, Dr Emily Turner and Professor Filippo Varese, her work sits at the intersection of victimology, penology, and trauma-informed practice, contributing to critical debates on survivorhood, masculinity, and institutional care within the prison estate. Jess can be reached at jessica.glynn@manchester.ac.uk