University of Kent

Research

Research Interests

I became interested in criminology through work I did with Steve Box that looked at the relationship between punishment and the economy. This led to a wider concern in the ways political debates around law and order have impacted on responses to crime. In particular I became interested in fear of crime and the way this has been used to justify punitive policies. My statistical background has meant that I have often been engaged in quantitative analysis of crime data, both official statistics and crime surveys, and here again I have been interested in examining the relationships between crime and fear of crime with wider economic and social changes. More recently with New Labour's interest in 'what works' I have worked on in several large scale evaluations of new interventions and crime reduction strategies. My other interests include Policing and Youth Crime.

Current Research Projects

I currently have the following five research projects:

• Evaluating the effectiveness and outcomes of the Rural Partnership Initiative (01.11.03 - 31.12.06, £6,750).
• Kent Rural Partnership - Study of level and fear of crime (01.02.04 - 31.07.04, £9,949)

Both of these are for Kent County Council and are part of a wider set of work looking at their community safety strategies with a particular focus on rural areas.

• Review of the current knowledge on the statistical development, core risk and protective factors and measures to reduce juvenile violence in the EU member states (19.12.03 - 18.09.04, €38,655)
  This project for the European Union Crime Prevention Network is examining both trends in juvenile violence and interventions to deal with the problems across all the current 15 members states of the EU.
• Evaluation of Police Performance Management Project Enhance (01.01.04 - 31.12.04, £39,951)
  The Police Standards Unit in the Home Office funds this work that is looking at the implementation of a flexible performance regime by the local Canterbury police. The hope is that it will enable them to respond more effectively to local public concerns.
• Referral Order Re-conviction Study (01.03.04 - 17.04.04, £35,250)
  I was one of the team that evaluated the introduction of the restorative justice based Referral Orders for Young Offenders in England and Wales. This is a follow study looking at how successful they have been in reducing re-convictions. The work is funded by the Youth Justice Board.

Past Research Projects

• 1986 £2,500 from the Home Office Research and Planning Unit to analyze fear of crime using data from the British Crime survey 1984.
• 1987 £5,000 from the Home Office Research and Planning Unit to extend the analysis of fear of crime, to study victimisation rates using log-odds ratios and to explore the 'irrational-rational' components of fear.
• 1988 £2,500 from the Home Office Research and Planning Unit for a preliminary study of the sources in variation from the Priority Estates Evaluation Survey.
• 1988 £28,700 research grant from ESRC for project 'British Crime Surveys: A Comparative Study of some National Local Data Sets'.
• 1991 £2,950 from the Nuffield Foundation 'The Impact of Diversion Schemes on Juveniles and Young People in Kent: The Experience of JOLT'.
• 1993 £12,382 from the Home Office Research and Planning Unit to study ethnic minorities' experiences of crime and the criminal justice system using the 1988 and 1992 British Crime Survey.
• 1993 £127,300 from the Home Office Police Research Group to develop and evaluate a national crime management model.
• 1993 £80,930 from the ESRC as part of its 'Crime and Social Order' research initiative to study socio-economic and structural determinants of trends in crime and punishment in the UK.
• 1994 £15,000 from the Home Office Criminal Justice Unit, Research and Statistics Division to analyse British Crime Survey data on the attitudes of ethnic minorities to criminal and the criminal justice system.
• 1994 £28,464 from the Scottish Office to develop and evaluate a crime management model for Central Scotland Police.
• 1996 £6,000 from the Home Office Criminal Justice Unit, Research and Statistics Division to analyse British Crime Survey data on police stops of different ethnic groups.
• 1996 £15,000 (with Betsy Stanko) from the Children Society and Hackney Safer Cities to investigate the social and economic costs of domestic violence in the London Borough of Hackney.
• 1998 £10,350 (with Steve Uglow) from the Scottish Office to analyse policing data from the Scottish Crime Surveys.
• 1999 £209,069 (with D. Miers, M. Maguire, A. Netten, T. Newburn and S. Uglow) from Home Office to evaluate Restorative Justice Schemes. (Consortium of UKC, Goldsmiths and Cardiff).
• 1999 £365,288 (with A. Crawford, A. Netten, T. Newburn and S. Uglow) from the Home Office to evaluate the pilot implementation of Referral Orders. (Consortium of UKC and Goldsmiths and Leeds).
• 1999 £43,000 (with A. Netten and S. Uglow) from the Youth Justice Board to evaluate restorative justice projects in North-East London).
• 2000 £50,000 (with A. Netten and S. Uglow) from the Youth Justice Boiard to evaluate Family Support Projects in Kent.
• 2000 £209,069 (with A. Netten, T. Newburn and S. Uglow) from the Home Office to evaluate projects to reduce racially motivated offending. (Consortium of UKC and Goldsmiths).
• 2002 £50,107 from the Home Office to evaluate the impact of the Kent and Medway Acts 2001.
• 2002 £175,382 (with A. Netten, T. Newburn and S. Uglow) from the Home Office to evaluate the pilot schemes for the visual recording of police interviews. (Consortium of UKC and LSE).
• 2002 £4,830 from the Kent County Council to evaluate the effectiveness and outcomes of the Rural Partnership Initiative.
• 2002 £21,179 from the Home Office to review and analyse existing approaches to forecasting trends in crime.
  

Research Supervision

I welcome research students in any of my areas of research interest. If you are interested in coming to work with me get in touch with me at the e-mail address above.

Teaching

I give lectures and seminars on the core Criminology modules SO305 Introduction to Criminology, SO505 Sociology of Deviance, SO536 Criminal Justice in Modern Britain and convene and teach the optional module SO535 Youth and Crime. I also teach SO819 Quantitative Methods on the Post-graduate MA Research Methods programme .

Publications

• 1998 'Crime and the Business Cycle in Post-War Britain Revisited' British Journal of Criminology, 38, 681-698.
• 1999 'The Labour Market and Post-war Crime Trends in England and Wales' chapter 2m, pp 30-56 in P. Carlen and R. Morgan (eds.) Crime Unlimited: Questions for the 21st Century, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke.
• 2000 The Police and Public in Scotland: An Analysis of Data from the British and Scottish Crime Surveys 1982 - 1996. Scottish Office, Central Research Unit. Crime and Criminal Justice Research Findings No. 33. (Co-author S. Uglow).
• 2001a Evaluation of Restorative Justice Schemes. Home office Crime Reduction Research Series Paper No. 9. (Co-authors M. Maguire, S. Goldie, K. Sharpe, A. Netten, S. Uglow, K. Doolin, A. Hallam, T. Newburn, and J. Enterkin); London: Home Office
• 2002a The Introduction of Referral Orders into the Youth Justice System Home Office Research Study 242, (Co-authors T. Newburn, A. Crawford, R. Earle, S. Goldie, G. Masters, A. Netten, R. Saunders, K. Sharpe, and S. Uglow); London: Home Office.
• 2002b Young People and Street Crime Youth Justice Board Research Report (Co-authors M.Fitzgerald and J.Stockdale); London: YJB.
• 2003a Trends in Crime Forecasting Models (forthcoming) Home Office Economic Resource Analysis Research Study; London: Home Office.
• 2003b Targeting the Markets for Stolen Goods - Two Targeted Policing Initiative Projects (forthcoming) Home Office Development Project Report (Co-authors Charlotte Harris, Steve Uglow, Liz Gilling and Ann Netten): London: Home Office.
• 2003c Theory into Practice: Implementing a Market Reduction Approach to Property Crime, Chapter 7 in K. Bullock & N.Tilley (eds.) Crime Reduction and Problem Oriented Policing (Co-authors C.Harris and S.Uglow); Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
• 2004a "Uniform Styles? Aspects of Police Centralisation England and Wales" (forthcoming) Policing and Society (Co-authors Rob Heaton and Stev Uglow)
• 2004b "Uniform Styles II. The approach of a National Policing Model - Best practice or Best Guess?" (forthcoming) Policing and Society (Co-authors Rob Heaton and Stev Uglow)

Memberships

I am a member of the Editorial Board of, and have acted as referee for, the British Journal of Criminology, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and Punishment and Society. I have also acted as a referee for the American Sociological Review, Criminology, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, the International Review of Victimology and the Pacific Sociology Review. I was a member of the Program Committee for the 1995 meeting of the American Society of Criminology. I have acted as an external assessor for the ESRC and the Nuffield Foundation on grant applications in the criminological area. I am a member of the British Society of Criminology, the American Society of Criminology and the Howard league for Penal Reform.

Links

The British Society of Criminology web-site is at:
www.britsoccrim.org/

The American Society of Criminology web-site is at:
www.asc41.com/

The Howard League for Penal Reform web pages may be found at:
www.howardleague.org/