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The sociology of crime and deviance, the sociology of law and sociological criminal justice studies are together viewed as one of the major fields in sociology known as ‘criminology’. Sociologists in the field mainly focus on identifying and explaining the varying levels and trends of crime/deviance by gender, age, race/ethnicity and other social groups with social change; the social mechanisms by which individuals choose to violate social norms, which are related to many other major fields of sociology such as social stratification, social demography, the sociology of education, the sociology of marriage and the family and social psychology; and the formal and informal social control of criminals and deviants, and the social consequences of such control. Faculty members in this research cluster are actively involved in international criminology societies and have published peer-reviewed papers in high-quality international criminology journals on topics such as substance abuse, gambling, juvenile delinquency, domestic violence, victimisation and policing. Their expertise is recognised both internationally and locally. The faculty has also established close relationships with criminal justice agencies and related organisations in Hong Kong and mainland China for collaborative research. Given the growing prominence of genetics-informed sociology, faculty members have initiated novel research on gene-environment interactions and their effects on the propensity of various types of risk-taking behaviour among the Chinese through social surveys and DNA collection. The focus on Chinese populations develops knowledge on the potential cultural variation in the manifestation of genes related to risk-taking behaviour beyond the Western context. This research is also a response to the bridging of biomedical science and deviance studies by international criminology academics.