The council was established to build ties between the research efforts of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. In Nordic criminology, there has been a trend toward reliance on state-affiliated establishments. The trademark of Scandinavian criminology has been its policy orientation, empirical foundations, and reliance on middle-range theories. Because populations are small and public records are good, Scandinavian research has been able to study populations with respect to criminal offending, crime, and victimization. In addition to longitudinal studies and a focus on lifestyle factors, research has focused on such specific crimes as as economic offenses, violent offenses, and narcotic drug offenses. Social control systems have been a major theme of Nordic criminological research, and interest in the history of crime and crime control has increased. An additional area of interst has been the ideological foundations of crime control and public attitudes toward crime and punishment. Included are 69 references.