The Criminology of Regulation

ABSTRACT The field of regulation and governance has strong roots in criminological research. Foundational ideas about regulatory enforcement styles, root causes of compliance, and nongovernmental approaches to regulation and its enforcement have originated in criminological research. Over the last decades, however, criminology has been less explicitly present in the study of regulatory governance. This article, as an introduction to a special issue on the topic, discusses key theories, findings, and developments in criminological work's relevance to regulatory studies. It discusses how the criminological theory of capable guardianship offers a vital opportunity approach to understand and address regulatory violations. It shows the importance of longitudinal research in regulatory studies, highlighting how offending changes along the regulated business life cycle. Furthermore, it showcases how criminological research offers a new perspective on the organizational analysis of offending behaviors and the vitality of meso‐level analysis within a broader macro context. And finally, it provides new avenues for enforcement and compliance research, including the study of defensive compliance practices and a compliance management approach to tackle police abuse.