Criminological Research in Cultural Heritage Crime

Dear Colleagues,

Cultural heritage crime (also known as art crime in some instances) is an umbrella term that, according to John Conklin (1994), refers to criminal attacks against works of art. In the final years of the last century, that pioneering definition inspired a field of criminology that was long overdue but is currently flourishing. This field encompasses criminological research (that is, in the words of Edwin Sutherland, the empirical study of crimes and how to prevent them) of unlawful phenomena, such as art theft, fakes and forgeries, looting of archaeological sites, vandalism, or the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflicts, among others. Until a few years ago, some of these issues were dealt with by other academic disciplines, such as archaeologists or art historians. Moreover, criminologists in different countries have also been tackling such issues, dispelling the notion that there has been little research done relating to this field.

The scope of the present Special Issue on art and heritage crime is twofold. On the one hand, it complements another Special Issue of the journal Heritage devoted to antiquities trafficking and forgery in the digital age, edited by Dr. Damien Huffer. On the other hand, this Special Issue is devoted entirely to criminologists and their research in the field of cultural heritage crime, as a means of showcasing their ongoing work. Together, these Special Issues show the strength of and necessity for research in this field. As such, the goal of the present Special Issue is to highlight research done in other less researched fields under the umbrella of cultural heritage crime. Topics to be considered include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Theoretical approaches to understanding cultural heritage crime;
• Methodological questions;
• Measurement of the phenomena;
• Art theft;
• Fakes and forgeries;
• Archaeological looting;
• Illicit transnational flows of cultural heritage;
• Vandalism;
• Willful destruction of cultural heritage during armed conflicts;
• White collar crime and organized crime and the intersection with cultural heritage;
• Policing cultural heritage crime;
• Prevention of cultural heritage crime.

Dr. Marc Balcells i Magrans
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Heritage is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Art crime
• Cultural heritage crime
• Art theft
• Forgeries
• Criminology