We research the merger of crime control and migration control.

Who we are

CINETS is an international network dedicated to the critical study of crimmigration: the entanglement of criminal law, migration control, borders, citizenship, security, and social exclusion. We bring together scholars, practitioners, artists, activists, and others to examine how migration is governed through punishment, detention, deportation, surveillance, racialization, and bureaucratic control and to foster rigorous, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged conversations about justice, democracy, mobility, and human dignity.

convene

Bi-annual conferences and workshops bring scholars, practitioners, artists, and advocates into sustained crimmigration exchange.

compare

Researchers trace how criminal law, migration control, citizenship, and border regimes converge across jurisdictions.

document

Fieldwork and legal-empirical methods examine detention, deportation, policing, externalisation, and border violence.

publish

The network circulates books, articles, policy analysis, public writing, and conference archives for wider debate.

Children walking along a gravel path between temporary housing units in a settlement

Demonstrators holding a sign that reads Sea Rescue Is Not A Crime

Weathered multilingual Grenzgebiet frontier-area sign attached to a tree

Protester wearing a banner reading Menschen statt Grenzen schützen, Nein zu Frontex

Steel border wall and access road running across rocky arid hills

Activists holding a No Nations No Borders banner and anti-Frontex signs

Black-and-white photograph of people including children walking across open ground

News & Events

View all

Jun 22 – 25, 2027

Summer School 2027: Studying Forced Migration in Latin America and the Caribbean — Interdisciplinary Research Methodologies

An interdisciplinary summer school on forced migration research methodologies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Feb 20, 2026

Final program preview coming end of March

The organising committee is finalising panels across comparative case studies, empirical research, and arts-based methodologies.

Jan 15, 2026

Registration open for non-presenting attendees

While abstract submission has closed, researchers may register to attend CINETS 2026 as non-presenting participants.

Nov 1, 2025

CINETS 2026 conference announced at Leiden Law School

The seventh bi-annual CINETS conference will explore crimmigration in an age of authoritarian drift, hosted in Leiden with Border Criminologies.