55 umagazine issue 18 劉建宏教授在墨西哥舉行的國際會議發表演講 Prof Liu gives a speech at an international conference in Mexico 劉建宏教授與斯德哥爾摩犯罪學獎得主Robert Sampson教授合照 A group photo of Prof Liu and Stockholm Prize in Criminology recipient Robert Sampson In scanning UM’s growth prospects, Liu can see that there is a rich vein of opportunity for Asian criminology. He puts it this way, ‘Current criminological theories are invariably based on American research and model. Whether these theories apply to the Asian context is open to question. Case in point: East and West differ significantly in prison studies. In the West, they focus on how to manage the prisons effectively. In the East, they care more about how to rehabilitate the inmates, to prepare them for a new life. That’s why I feel there is plenty of elbow room for criminological studies to grow in Asia.’ In 2009, together with 50 experts and scholars from 14 Asian countries, Liu founded the Asian Criminological Society, with UM as its home base. That same year, he became the editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Criminology, which this year became the first and only journal on criminology in Asia to be included in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). An important part of Liu’s work is in developing criminological theories that are applicable to both East and West. ‘Sociologists are fond of saying that socialisation and the environment have an impact on human behaviour. Political scientists, on the other hand, like to say that social conflict, exploitation, oppression, and inequality are the true causes of crime,’ he says, ‘Criminologists are never short of criminological theories. As for me, I believe that one of my principal contributions is in advancing a ‘relational approach’ to the study of criminal behaviour.’ This is a new Asian paradigm which is predicated on the logic of cross-cultural comparisons. Existing theories in the West have largely ignored the importance of cultural differences on the study of crime and criminal justice, based as they are on the unchallenged assumption that theories gestated in the Western environment are universally applicable. Liu’s new relationalism perspective takes issue with this prevalent assumption. It posits that the relational approach explains criminal behaviour and society’s reaction to criminal behaviour, of which the criminal justice system is one example, in ways that Western individualistic perspectives alone cannot. Since being published, his theory has been lauded by some famous criminologists. Liu is busy working to refine his theoretical model, so that it can better highlight the cultural perspectives of Asian and other non-Western societies. In bringing the interview to a close, Liu stresses that criminology is a work-in-progress and a never-ending pursuit, with enormous import for application. He hopes that by introducing this new paradigm internationally, it will make contributions locally. In the past, he points out, there has been relatively significant cooperation between the Macao government and the UM Faculty of Law. In the future, he says, ‘I hope we will enjoy more cooperative opportunities with our government on crime prevention in service of Macao.’ 人為甚麼犯罪？澳大犯罪學專家告訴你 UM Criminologist Tells You Why People Commit Crimes
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