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This chapter traces the history of global crime governance from the final decades of the nineteenth century to today, with particular attention paid to the United Nations and its crime programme after World War II. It highlights significant changes to the structure and mandate of the UN crime programme over the last 70 years and how UN agencies have helped shape the international crime policy agenda and its focus on development. The chapter then illustrates how vestiges of prevailing beliefs about development and crime and the global political economy that gave rise to them continue to influence the work of the UN system and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) today. In this regard, our analysis highlights some institutional and structural challenges inherent to containing the ‘dark side of globalisation’ together with the ways in which the UN's efforts to do so privilege the interests and understandings of Northern countries. We conclude that these power asymmetries represent an obstacle to the UN's custodianship of criminological targets that feature in the SDGs, but stop short of suggesting that the governance of the crime–development nexus should be viewed as a coherent, neo-colonial project given the institutional weaknesses within the UN system, the ‘Rise of the South’ and the potential for civil society to contest its priorities and agendas.

This chapter introduces the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and considers how criminological research, policy and practice can advance this global agenda. It critically accounts for the complex geopolitical, institutional and ideological landscapes that gave rise to this agenda and the challenges this poses for implementing the SDGs today. The chapter also raises important questions about the viability and consequentiality of global efforts to govern the nexus between crime, justice and sustainable development on account of the gravest threat to humanity, climate change. We conclude that all of these issues highlight the need for scholars and practitioners with expertise on crime and justice to approach this agenda from a critical standpoint. At the same time, we acknowledge that the SDGs remain the best global framework that we have for promoting safer and more equitable societies.