Team
Our History
In December 2016 Julian and Julia founded the Netzwerk Kriminologie Berlin to promote an interdisciplinary exchange between young scientists in their field. In 2017, Julian spent six months in New York City, where he worked as a volunteer for the grassroots organization CCFY in projects to support young people involved with the criminal justice system. The civil society involvement and the sustainable support that was provided for those affected by the justice system inspired him deeply and so he returned to Berlin with the idea of building something similar in Germany. His colleagues Anna Kroupa and Julia Wegner also recognized the need for innovative, evidence-based education, counselling and rehabilitation projects inside and outside of prisons in Germany and so, they founded the independent non-profit association Tatort Zukunft e. V. in May 2018.
You can find our statutes here.
Administration
Dr Julian Knop
Chairman
Julian Knop is a criminologist and holds a doctorate in law from the Free University of Berlin with a thesis on the German juvenile justice system. He is a lecturer at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, the Free University of Berlin and the Berlin-Brandenburg Youth Detention Center. He gained volunteer experience at the grassroots organization Community Connections for Youth in New York City and the juvenile detention center in Berlin.
Anna Kroupa
Deputy Chairwoman
Anna holds a degree in law and is an employee of the Helmut Ziegner Foundation. She works as an external staff member at the juvenile detention centre in Berlin and is a voluntary prison assistant at Tegel Prison. Previously, she worked as a research assistant in the field of pedagogy/education development research in the DaQuas project at the Free University of Berlin.
Jana Sophie Lanio
Management
Jana has an M.Sc. in Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology. She was able to gain insights into prisons during her studies and is also working on her doctorate at the TU Braunschweig. She is the managing director of Tatort Zukunft and works on individual projects and the development of educational campaigns.
Marie Langner
Reporting, External presentation
Marie studied law at the Free University of Berlin. She completed her specialization in juvenile criminal law, prison law and criminology and participated at the project “University in Prison” twice. Now she is studying politics, administration, and sociology. She supports Tatort Zukunft in reporting, external presentation and developing awareness campaigns and coordinates the production of our self-help.
Peter Mercer
Program Management and Public Relations
Peter holds an M.A. in Modern European History from the Humboldt University of Berlin. During his studies, he focused on economic policy and sociological issues. At Tatort Zukunft, he works in project development and on the strategic orientation of the association.
Credible Messenger
Jana Sophie Lanio
Project Coordinator
Jana has an M.Sc. in Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology. She was able to gain insights into prisons during her studies and is also working on her doctorate at the TU Braunschweig. She is the managing director of Tatort Zukunft and works on individual projects and the development of educational campaigns.
Peter Mercer
Project staff
Peter holds an M.A. in Modern European History from the Humboldt University of Berlin. During his studies, he focused on economic policy and sociological issues. At Tatort Zukunft, he works in project development and on the strategic orientation of the association.
Emre
Project staff
Emre is a certified educational assistant and also has several years of experience in voluntary work with young people. Another field of work is martial arts, where he works as a personal trainer. His own experiences with crime and delinquency also led him to Tatort Zukunft. Here, Emre works on the Credible Messenger project. The focus of his work is on interacting with professionals, with whom he shares his real-life experiences and thus provides a new perspective on juvenile delinquency and crime prevention.
Legal Team
Cosima Jacobi
Project Coordinator
Cosima has an M.A. in Social Sciences and focuses on the intersection of law and social sciences. She dealt with the criminal justice policy as well as social and economic dynamics that are reflected in the social reality of criminal practice. At Tatort Zukunft Cosima is the Project Coordinator for our legal advice project “Recht verständlich”.
Ronja Maria Ahlers
Project development and legal support
Ronja studied law in Bonn and completed her legal clerkship in Berlin with the 2nd state examination. During her studies, she already focused on the field of the penal system, in particular the treatment of mentally ill offenders in prison. She currently works as a legal assistant in a law firm in Berlin and is working on her dissertation on the subject of legal protection in the German prison system. At Tatort Zukunft she is responsible, among other things, for the development and coordination of student legal advice in the prison system.
Prison Design Lab
Corinna Dehn
Project Development and Coordination, Visual Communication
Corinna Dehn graduated from the Berlin University of the Arts in 2013 with a degree in fashion design.
In her professional career, she has worked as a senior designer for Y-3 – a long-standing collaboration between Adidas and Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.
In her role, she focused on the menswear and accessories collections.
She worked closely with Yohji Yamamoto’s design team to develop and define an innovative design language that combines traditional craftsmanship and modern sportswear technology.
Since 2020, she has been working as a freelance designer on various projects in a broader design context.
For Tatort Zukunft e.V., she organizes and leads design workshops for incarcerated young people and uses her expertise to inspire and support young people.
Lisa Mann
Project Development, Visual Communication
Lisa holds an M.A. in Design (Fashion) from the University of the Arts, Berlin. During her studies and several years of professional practice in the film and fashion industry, she gained experience in project management, concept development and visual communication. As a lecturer she works in the cooperation project between Tatort Zukunft e. V., the Berlin University of the Arts and the Juvenile Detention Center (Jugendstrafanstalt) Berlin. She also supports the association in design issues and external presentation.
Scientific Advisory Board
Our team includes Prof. Dr. Kirstin Drenkhahn and Prof. Dr. Heinz Cornel, two renowned criminologists who advise our association as scientific advisors.
Prof. Dr. Kirstin Drenkhahn
