2017 winner of The Stockholm Prize in Criminology- Professor Richard E. Tremblay
The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is the world's most prestigious award in the field of criminology. The 2017 Stockholm Prize in Criminology lauds the work of Professor Richard E. Tremblay in Montreal, Paris and Dublin.
Crime prevention
The international jury for the Stockholm Prize in Criminology has recognized Professor Tremblay as the leading scholar in the world in developing basic science connections between biological, family and social factors in human development, and who combines this research with rigorous tests of policies that may alter these factors to reduce crime and violence.
The Jury recognizes a lifetime of pioneering work, reflected in over 500 publications, that began in Montreal in the 1980s and continues today in Paris and Dublin with new research testing pre-natal crime prevention with at-risk mothers.
The Jury took special note of his success in drawing connections across many different scientific disciplines, as well as philosophy (in the tradition of great scientists who sought to build connections rather than walls between disciplines), as well as embedding this basic science into applied criminology testing public policies for crime prevention.
Prize Winning Research
The jury selected four key findings to highlight from Professor Tremblay’s research.
- The peak age for violent behaviour is not age 20, but age three - with many implications for violence prevention and intervention policies.
- The predictors of early and persistent violence are epigenetic as well as genetic, which means that they can be changed rather than accepted as inevitable.
- These predictors cannot be ignored, as demonstrated by the increased risk of violence he found among Montreal children who went to preschool at age 4 after suffering traumas at birth, compared to children with similar traumas who did not attend preschool.