Tom Daems - Criminology and Democratic Politics

In June 2018, we were informed that KU Leuven, upon our nomination, would confer upon Professor Richard Sparks the degree of doctor honoris causa . After passing through the gremia of the university, that decision was formally communicated to Professor Sparks in a letter of 19 October 2018 signed by Professor Luc Sels, the rector of KU Leuven. A few days later, we received a letter of acceptance from Professor Sparks. This proved to be the official start of a truly exciting year for our criminology institute in Leuven, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2019.

The official ceremony took place on 25 April 2019. It was followed by a public lecture by Professor Sparks with the title Beyond the Rendez-vous. Criminology, Critique, Connection. The ceremony was preceded by the two-day international conference Criminology and Democratic Politics. For this conference, we had invited scholars from different parts of the world to reflect on the central theme of the conference, in particular by engaging with some of the themes in the oeuvre of Richard Sparks. There were four sessions, which reflect the key areas in his body of work: Punishment, knowledge and penal politics, Crime, fear and the media, Democratic politics and the (ab)uses of criminological knowledge and Public criminology and criminologys public role. All plenary speakers were subsequently invited to contribute a chapter to this book. This resulted in thirteen chapters (chapters three to fifteen of this volume). In addition, in April 2020 we conducted an interview with Richard Sparks which has been included as chapter two. Richard also agreed to offer some final reflections, not only on the chapters in this volume but also on some pressing issues of our current epoch (COVID-19, police violence, etc.). These reflections became a full, stand-alone chapter which is the final contribution in this book (chapter sixteen).

We are grateful to all speakers at the conference and, in particular, to those who were able to contribute a chapter to this book. This conference would not have been possible without the generous support of the Faculty of Law of KU Leuven. We have been incredibly fortunate to receive financial and logistical support to organize the conference and to welcome our national and international guests in Leuven in, so we believe, the best conditions possible. For this we are very grateful to the Faculty Board, in particular former dean Professor Bernard Tilleman and administrative director Monique Vandyck and her staff. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC) for supporting the nomination of Richard Sparks for the doctorate honoris causa , for chairing sessions, contributing to the round-tables, and participating in the celebrations of 90 years of criminology in Leuven. Stijn Vivijs, the coordinator of LINC, again proved to be invaluable in helping with organizational and practical matters. The alumni association VALC kindly sponsored the reception after the first day of the conference. We are also grateful to Tom Sutton and his team for welcoming this volume to the Routledge publishing programme and offering help and support in preparing and finalizing the manuscript. Last but not least, a huge thank you to Richard Sparks. For us, this book is the end-point of what has been an intense, yet highly enjoyable and intellectually stimulating journey. It also offered us an excellent opportunity and excuse to prepare the festivities, share our plans, and discuss criminology, and much more, with Richard, often over dinner, from Sarajevo over Heverlee to Leuven.