Emerging Issues

The Emerging Issues category is dedicated to the exploration of new, evolving, and complex challenges affecting criminology, criminal justice, public safety, and global security. This category provides a platform for innovative and forward-looking research that examines the impact of technological advancements, globalization, and changing criminal behaviors on contemporary justice systems and society. It encourages interdisciplinary scholarship that contributes to the understanding of emerging threats, opportunities, and policy responses in an increasingly interconnected world.

Submissions may focus on cybercrime, including cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent offenses such as online fraud, identity theft, cyberbullying, ransomware attacks, digital piracy, and cyberterrorism. Research addressing investigative techniques, digital evidence, cybercrime prevention, and legal responses to technology-facilitated crimes is particularly encouraged.

The category also welcomes studies on artificial intelligence in criminal justice, including the use of AI in policing, crime prediction, digital investigations, risk assessment, surveillance, forensic analysis, and decision-support systems. Research examining ethical, legal, and governance issues surrounding AI applications is highly relevant.

Additionally, this category includes cybersecurity research related to information protection, critical infrastructure security, cyber resilience, and incident response. Studies on transnational crime are likewise encouraged, covering organized crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, cyber-enabled transnational offenses, and international cooperation in crime prevention and law enforcement.

Through rigorous scholarship, this category seeks to advance understanding of emerging threats and innovations shaping the future of criminal justice and global security.