Education

PhD in Criminology (Doctor Europaeus), Catholic University of Milan

MA in Criminology for Investigation and Security (cum laude), University of Bologna

BA in Sociology and Criminological Sciences for Safety, University of Bologna

Biography

Dr. Comunale is an Analyst of the Security Program at the Center for the Study of Democracy. He is a criminologist with several years of experience in academic and policy research in the fields of Justice and Home Affairs.

He is the coordinator of Project CYBBAR, funded by the European Commission to investigate underreporting of cybercrime and develop a victimisation survey of cybercrime against businesses in the EU. At CSD, he also conducts research on transnational organised crime, terrorism and violent extremisms, and trafficking in human beings.

Prior to join CSD, Dr. Comunale worked for three years as a researcher at Transcrime – Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime (Milan), where he investigated the criminal careers of Italian mafia offenders and urban violence related to Latino street gangs. In 2019, he was a visiting research scholar at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (Amsterdam) and worked as a consultant for the UNODC Global Study on Homicide. Previously, he served as an individual contractor at the Safety and Security Section of the International Criminal Court in 2014.