Home Journal List Pakistan Journal of Criminology Volume-11 Article Details

The Decade of Criminology

Abstract

It was the 29th senior Officers Seminar on crime prevention at UNAFEI, Japan in 2005. Dr. Fasihuddin had no clue that this night was going to change his entire outlook, and that he was about to embark on a journey of great value. As Robert Frost writes, “Two roads diverged in the woods, and I travelled the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” Indeed Dr. Fasihuddin traced a path that would decide the course of the coming decade. It was soon followed by his participation in the 14th World Congress of Criminology of ISC, at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Sitting in his chair in the magnificent hall, Dr. Fasihuddin was in awe as national societies were being represented with their flags hoisted at this grand stage, but like an arrow to the heart, he was disappointed that the green and white colours of his country’s flag were not insight. During this conference, Dr. Fasihuddin interacted with many criminologists (mostly former practitioners) and developed a taste for institutional criminology. Being an academic himself, Dr. Fasihuddin realized the need and importance of this discipline; but to his dismay, there was no national level representation. He decided to bring academics and practitioners together on a forum for connectivity and collaboration; a forum of sharing knowledge and experiences with one another, so that crime management was better planned out and more effectively performed with the aid of evidence based policies. Like Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Fasihuddin dreamt of an idealistic dream; a society free of crime, where crime management will be so successful so that crime would be forced to crawl into the darkest dungeons. Even though Dr. Fasihuddin knew that this could realistically never happen, he deemed it important for some necessary steps to be taken to try to reduce crime, and he saw this potential in criminology as a discipline and as a mission.

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