Laura Bui

I am Senior Lecturer in Criminology and a Chartered Psychologist. I hold a Ph.D. from the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge; M.A. (Psychology) from Boston University; and B.A. (Psychology and Criminology) from the University of California, Irvine. I work on topics related to the psychology of violence, metascience, and cross-cultural studies, but my two main research interests are scientific knowledge production on crime and ‘East and West’ comparisons – in other words, comparisons that are between supposed opposites.

On knowledge production, I am particularly interested in how and why certain paradigms and concepts are used to inform the direction of conducting scientific research. For example, I researched the use of ‘culture’ in international comparisons in criminology and found that one meaning of culture (Individualism- Collectivism) was disproportionately used in comparisons between Western and East Asian countries; this suggests that certain meanings of 'culture' are used to highlight complete opposites and is possibly a consequence of knowledge production that is Westerncentric. I am examining the relationship between the science of innate criminality, morality, and social obligations, and this research informs my third-year undergraduate class, 'The Criminal Psychopath'. 

My second research interest focuses not only on empirically conducting comparisons and the issues of doing so, but also the wider beliefs, narratives, and biases that may influence the findings. For example, my co-authored book, Crime in Japan: A Psychological Perspective (2019, in the series Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia), refined the common narrative of low crime Japan by using psychology to illuminate seven explanations for the country’s comparatively low crime; it was honourably mentioned in 2020 by the Asian Criminological Society. I am currently guest editing a special issue in Journal of Criminal Justice (with Dr Kofi Boakye, University of Leicester) on international comparisons of crime across development and the life course. 

I have been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (2013-14; 2017-19) and the University of Pennsylvania (2023), and will be Affiliated Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden University, beginning Autumn 2024. There, I will be working on and thinking about the influence of East Asian philosophies on Global North paradigms of justice.