Policy, practice and activism research cluster
Ours is an emerging strand of work within the Birkbeck Law School, focusing on the development and critique of social policy and practice. Our work is often externally funded, empirical research with an explicit policy or practice focus, and we often also work with activists and grass-roots organisations.
Our work cross-cuts criminal justice, social welfare, immigration and education spheres of public policy, and the delivery of services and sanctions by public, private and voluntary sector institutions.
Methodological diversity and innovation are key to our research activities and can pose a range of ethical challenges. Much of our research involves active engagement with practitioners and professionals, as well as service users and recipients.
Relevant research centres
- The work of the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR) is central to the activities of this cluster.
Members
- Bina Bhardwa (drugs policy)
- Monish Bhatia (immigration)
- Bill Bowring
- Eddie Bruce-Jones (discrimination, policing, asylum)
- Penny Cooper (courts)
- Rachael Dobson (welfare, homelessness)
- Helen Fair (prisons)
- Catherine Heard (prisons)
- Gillian Hunter (courts)
- Jessica Jacobson (courts, prisons)
- Amy Kirby (courts)
- Sarah Lamble (punishment, transformative justice)
- Jan MacVarish (child protection, health)
- Tiggey May (policing)
- Megan McElhone
- Daniel Monk (child protection, education)
- Leslie Moran (judicial diversity and communications)
- Richard Sen (policing)
- Emily Setty (courts)
- Paul Turnbull (drugs policy)
- Sappho Xenakis (criminal justice policy and practice on terrorism, white-collar and organised crime, penal policy)
Postgraduate Research Student members
- Jo Blackwell
- James Godfrey
- Becka Hudson (social movements, resistance to criminalisation)
- Shailesh Kumar
Current and recent externally funded research projects
- Understanding and reducing the use of imprisonment in ten countries (Jessica Jacobson, Helen Fair, Catherine Heard)
- Achieving Accessible Justice (Jessica Jacobson, Bina Bhardwa, Amy Kirby, Gillian Hunter, Penny Cooper, Emily Setty)
- Siblings, contact and the law: an overlooked relationship? (Daniel Monk)
- Enhancing problem-solving practice in the Youth Court (Jessica Jacobson, Gillian Hunter)