Helgi Gunnlaugsson

Helgi Gunnlaugsson is currently chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Iceland. He has written five books and published about fifty scholarly articles which have appeared in numerous journals in Europe and the United States. In addition, he has written more than thirty articles in the local media in Iceland on various issues related to his profession. He has given more than forty professional presentations at conferences both in the United States and in Europe and more than thirty public presentations outside academia. Helgi received his BA degree in Sociology from the University of Iceland in 1982, his MA and PhD degrees from the University of Missouri in Columbia, USA, in 1985 and 1992.

Helgi Gunnlaugson is the President of the Icelandic Sociological Association, served on the Board of the Nordic Sociological Association in 1996-2000 and has been a Council Member of the Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology since the beginning of 2001. He has served on various government committees in Iceland, one which addressed domestic violence and another on the curriculum in the social sciences at the junior college level. Moreover, he was on a committee who made decisions on granting community service during 1995-97.

Helgi Gunnlaugsson´s research interests involve local crime trends, crime perceptions, comparative criminology and the problem of drugs and alcohol. One of his books was published in the United States; Wayward Icelanders: Punishment, Boundary Maintenance and the Creation of Crime. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. Co-author John F. Galliher, Professor of Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.