Lucrezia Rizzelli

Lucrezia Rizzelli is a DPhil Candidate at the Centre for Criminology. She earned her Bachelor degree in Psychological Sciences and Techniques at the University of Florence, specializing in social, organizational and work psychology. Then, she completed her MA in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where she joined Professor Saul Kassin's false confessions laboratory and conducted research on the linguistic style of false confessions. Lucrezia volunteered at the Innocence Project, and was an investigative intern at the New York City Department of Investigation. In 2017, she received the award of "Best Psychology Student" of the year.  

She is researching the death penalty in Indonesia and its deterrent effect, or lack thereof, on drug crimes. This project is supervised by Professor Carolyn Hoyle and supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Doctoral Training Partnernship (DTP) and Lincoln College's Kingsgate Scholarship. The aim of this research is to examine the motivations that lead people to engage in drug crimes and to better understand the role that punishment plays in the decision-making process. By challenging the applicability of general deterrence theory to the reality of Indonesian couriers and drug traffickers, we hope to offer weight to the abolitionist cause and dismantle the belief that capital punishment is effective in deterring drug crimes.