Law researcher Dr Melissa de Vel-Palumbo, from Flinders University’s Centre for Crime Policy and Research at the College of Business, Government and Law, has won a prestigious grant from the European Commission.

She will study the offender perceptions of punishment at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich later this year after receiving a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions grant of more than 87,000 euros (A$138,000).

Dr de Vel-Palumbo will compare the way perpetrators interpret punishment against punishment aims as viewed by the criminal justice system and wider community.

“I want to know whether the messages we seek to send through punishment for criminals are effectively delivered and understood by wrongdoers,” she says.

Working with an expert in the field in Germany, Dr de Vel-Palumbo hopes her specialised body of work in criminal psychology will help to shape future policy, both in Australia and elsewhere.