Veronika Reidinger

Veronika Reidinger is a Junior Researcher at the Ilse Arlt Institute for Social Inclusion Research within the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten. She holds a BA and MA in Social Work from FH St. Pölten and is currently pursuing her PhD in Sociology at the University of Vienna with the dissertation title "The Social Organization of Preventive Measures," which examines the processing of institutionalized individuals through interconnected decision-making processes up to conditional release.

Her research interests center on the Sociology of Social Work, Total Institutions and Alternatives, and Restorative/Transformative Justice. Reidinger critically examines institutional practices, particularly in criminal justice and social work contexts, with a focus on risk assessment, domestic violence responses, and alternatives to conventional punitive approaches. Her work often employs critical theoretical frameworks to analyze power dynamics within social institutions.

Reidinger's publication record demonstrates consistent engagement with critical criminology, migration studies, and social justice issues. Her recent work shows a clear trajectory toward examining institutional processing mechanisms, particularly in criminal justice contexts, while maintaining a strong focus on material aspects of migration and displacement. She frequently collaborates with colleagues like Petra Herbinger on domestic violence research and with Arno Pilgram on probation services.

She has been actively involved in research since 2018 at the Ilse Arlt Institute, with additional roles including membership on the Federal Commission for Criminal and Preventive Measures at the Ombudsman's Office since 2021, voluntary probation work with Neustart since 2018, and research collaboration on projects like PSYGE (Interventions related to mental health and domestic violence) since 2023.

Her key projects include:

• SOMA
• GEMSORG – Municipal 'care councils' for participatory development of solutions for care issues
• (No) Baggage: Research on things brought along, left behind and newly acquired in the context of flight and expulsion
• Evaluation of Homelessness Assistance in Lower Austria
• Interventions bei Häuslicher Gewalt (Interventions in Domestic Violence)
• External Evaluation of the second season "Jamal al-Khatib – Mein Weg"