This page lists short details of all BSC events during 2019/20. All events were free to attend and organised by the convenors of each regional group.
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CANCELLED Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court
Date: March 20, 2020
The School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, with QUB ICCJ and Queen’s on Crime invited Associate Professor Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve to give a Distinguished Lecture based her award winning book. We hope this will be rescheduled at some point in the future.
The British Society of Criminology Wales Branch and the Cardiff Centre for Crime, Law and Justice are pleased to host Dr Layla Skinns on 18 November 2020 from 1-2pm. Dr Skinns will discuss her ESRC-funded research on material conditions in police custody. Registration is required through Zoom (see below)
The event is free to attend
Abstract: In a recent Trip Advisor review of a police custody block in South Yorkshire, the reviewer gave it only half a star and complained that “it was nothing but four walls and a mattress”. This illustrates how material conditions matter to those arrested and detained by the police whilst an investigation is conducted and a decision is taken about what to do next with the case. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ‘representational’ quality of these material conditions of police custody. Whether detainees have access to natural light and are detained in facilities which appear well maintained conveys to detainees something about how they are perceived by police authorities, by the state and by wider society, meaning that if a custody facility appears well looked after it suggests to detainees that their treatment is likely to follow suit. These ideas are examined using findings from a five-year ESRC-funded mixed-methods study of ‘good’ police custody which showed that detainee experiences of different types of dignity – linked to feelings of equal worth, autonomy and public decency – were significantly informed by their experiences of the material conditions of police custody. These arguments are also grounded in prison studies research and theorisation. As a result, I also reflect in my presentation on the boundaries between police studies and prison studies, and the possibilities and limitations of greater dialogue between scholars in each field.
Layla Skinns is a Reader in the Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law, University of Sheffield, having formerly worked and studied at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge and the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King’s College London. She has a longstanding interest in police and policing, in particular in how policing agents use their authority. A key focus of her research has been on police detention, in England and Wales, but also in other parts of the Anglophone world. In this setting, she is interested in police powers and their relationship with the law, police cultures and police discretion, and furthermore, how this impacts on equality and on state-citizen relations. She is also interested in how the public – particularly detainees – perceive the police, which links her research to discussions about police legitimacy and ‘good’ policing.
1-105pm: Introduction by Dr Roxanna Dehaghani, Deputy Director of Cardiff Centre for Crime, Law and Justice and Co-convenor of the Wales branch
1.05-1.45pm: Dr Layla Skinns, ‘A room with a view? Material conditions and the ‘representational’ inside police detention’
Zoom meeting: Nov 18, 2020 01:00 PM London
Register in advance for this meeting:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Building Trust in Justice: Understanding the role of civil society in legitimising state actors in transitional societies
March 25, 2020 1pm
Dr Martina Feilzer,
Bangor University, Main Arts, Council Chamber
Cancelled – ‘Public Criminology Through Public Education’
This interdisciplinary event would have brought together academics from Criminology, Arts & Humanities, Education, and practitioners from the Criminal Justice System to share innovation in learning and teaching. The event is joint-funded by the British Society of Criminology Learning and Teaching Network and the Welsh Branch of the British Society of Criminology, and hosted by Swansea University’s School of Law.
See the BSC Learning and Teaching Network page for more details.
CANCELLED Conference: Ethnography and the Shifting Boundaries of Policing
23 – 24 April 2020, Bangor University
Ethnography has proved to be a crucial methodology for entering and understanding the world of policing. The contemporary ‘pluralised’ policing field comprises a multiplicity of public, private and voluntary organisations, inviting new avenues for ethnographic research and debate. This two-day conference aimed to bring policing scholars and practitioners together to discuss and share insights from ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with policing actors and social control professionals across different contexts
WCCSJ was holding its Eleventh Annual Conference at Gregynog Hall, nr. Newtown, Powys
Co-organised by the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice
Dr Lizzie Seal – University of Sussex
Wed 19 February 2020, 3.30pm
Emotion, race and gender in cases of partner-murder in England and Wales, 1900-39
Abstract: This talk examines eleven capital cases of men of colour sentenced to death in England and Wales for intimate murders of white British women, 1900-39. It argues that such cases enable analysis of the prevailing emotional norms of this era and the ways in which these were shaped by race, gender and class. Perceptions of intimate relationships as legitimate or illegitimate – judgments about who should feel what about whom – related to understandings of citizenship. In revealing the emotional norms at play in cases of murder, it is possible to illustrate how the criminal justice system governed through emotion.
Bio: Dr Lizzie Seal is Reader in Criminology in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex. Her research is in the areas of historical and cultural criminology. She was Principal Investigator on ‘Race, Racialisation and the Death Penalty in England and Wales, 1900-65’ [Leverhulme RPG-2016-352], 2016-2018 and is currently PI on ‘Reforming British Law and Policy on the Global Death Penalty’ [British Academy IC3\100170]. Lizzie is the author of four monographs, most recently (with Maggie O’Neill, 2019) Imaginative Criminology: Of Spaces Past, Present and Future, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.
Covert Surveillance and the Sociology of Policing: Taking the Moral Dimension Seriously
February 19, 2020 6pm
Dr Bethan Loftus
Bangor University, Main Arts, Council Chamber
Free to attend and no registration required
Co-organised by the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice
Dr Layla Skinns, University of Sheffield
Wed 11 March 2020, 4pm
A room with a view? Material conditions and the ‘representational’ inside police detention
In a recent Trip Advisor review of a police custody block in South Yorkshire, the reviewer gave it only half a star and complained that “it was nothing but four walls and a mattress”. This illustrates how material conditions matter to those arrested and detained by the police whilst an investigation is conducted and a decision is taken about what to do next with the case. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ‘representational’ quality of these material conditions of police custody. Whether detainees have access to natural light and are detained in facilities which appear well maintained conveys to detainees something about how they are perceived by police authorities, by the state and by wider society, meaning that if a custody facility appears well looked after it suggests to detainees that their treatment is likely to follow suit. These ideas are examined using findings from a five-year ESRC-funded mixed-methods study of ‘good’ police custody which showed that detainee experiences of different types of dignity – linked to feelings of equal worth, autonomy and public decency – were significantly informed by their experiences of the material conditions of police custody. These arguments are also grounded in prison studies research and theorisation. As a result, I also reflect in my presentation on the boundaries between police studies and prison studies, and the possibilities and limitations of greater dialogue between scholars in each field.
Bio: Layla Skinns is a Reader in the Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law, University of Sheffield, having formerly worked and studied at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge and the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King’s College London. She has a longstanding interest in police and policing, in particular in how policing agents use their authority. A key focus of her research has been on police detention, in England and Wales, but also in other parts of the Anglophone world. In this setting, she is interested in police powers and their relationship with the law, police cultures and police discretion, and furthermore, how this impacts on equality and on state-citizen relations. She is also interested in how the public – particularly detainees – perceive the police, which links her research to discussions about police legitimacy and ‘good’ policing.
Any questions please contact the regional convenor, Roxanna Fatemi-Dehaghani email@example.com
FREE but please book at Eventbrite
Dr Ross McGarry – University of Liverpool
Wed, 6 November 2019, 1pm
Visualising Liminal Military Landscapes: an Autoethnographic Study of Armed Forces Day in the United Kingdom
Armed Forces Day is a civil-military event in the UK introduced into the public calendar during 2009 following recommendations made from The Report of Inquiry into National Recognition of Our Armed Forces, designed ‘to provide a focus for media-directed initiatives on defence and Service issues, and an occasion for scheduling public events involving the Forces, including Open Days and ‘freedom’ parades’ (Davies et al 2008, 7). Despite the significance of these events requiring the situating and performance of military values, personnel, equipment and activities within otherwise civic spaces, academic research and critical commentary into the implementation and development of Armed Forces Day is limited (Sangster 2017; Palmer 2017; McGarry 2019; Rech and Yarwood 2019). Influenced by autoethnographic work from critical human geography focussing on the materiality, spatiality and embodied experiences of military airshows (inter alia Rech 2015; Rech and Williams 2016; Rech 2019), and seeking to extend some insights from the seminal text ‘Military Geographies’ (Woodward 2004), the aim of this paper is to observe the development of Armed Forces Day as not only one of the most significant outcomes of the National Recognition of Our Armed Forces report, but also as a feat of socio-political engineering that transforms otherwise civic spaces into what are argued to become, “liminal military landscapes”.
Any questions please contact the regional convenor, Martina Feilzer firstname.lastname@example.org
Green Criminology in the Anthropocene
In association with the BSC Green Criminology Network.
16th January 2020 – Northumbria University
In the context of widespread, human-induced environmental harm criminology – as the discipline primarily concerned with questions of deviance and social control – finds itself particularly relevant. As such, this one day symposium aimed to spark debate in criminology about how best to respond to contemporary and emerging environmental crimes and harms at a time when existing responses appear ineffective.
New Directions in Drug Research
Thursday June 27, 2019, 12 – 4pm
ADSS Policy Hub – Lipman Building Room 204, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
List of Speakers:
Dr Tammy Ayres (University of Leicester)
John Liddell (Public Health England)
Dr Robert Maclean (Northumbria University)
Dr Amy O’Donnell (Newcastle University)
Professor Harry Sumnall (Liverpool John Moores University)
Yorkshire and Humberside Branch
January 30, 2019
‘Seeing the light: design, architecture and detainee dignity inside police detention’
Layla Skinns, Reader in Criminology, University of Sheffield.
December 7, 2020
Desistance and Rehabilitation: International Perspectives
Online Conference – Hosted by the University of Derby
Professor Stephen Farrell, University of Derby
Agency and Structure in Processes of Desistance and Persistence
Professor Marie-Pierre Villeneuve, Université de Sherbrooke
Assisting Processes of Desistance in Criminal Justice System Settings
Professor David Best, University of Derby
Measuring pathways to change: Recovery capital to institutional justice capital
Dr. Wouter Vanderplasschen, Ghent University, Department of Special Needs Education
Presentation on a recovery study with offenders not deemed criminally responsible
Dr. Isabelle F. Dufour, Laval University
Transcendence and Desistance
For more details on the conference including abstracts, presenter biographies and conference link please register via the following;
The BSC Midlands Branch presents a Zoom conference:
The Development of Transnational Policing
Wednesday 14th October 2020 1pm
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84823162898
(Meeting ID: 848 2316 2898 Passcode: 112720)
1:10pm The origins of transnational policing: the continental activities of the Bow Street ‘Runners’, 1749-1839 David J. Cox
1:25pm Transnational policing of online sex trafficking Karlie E. Stonard (and Ana M. Fuentes Cano)
1:40pm Enhancing the accountability and transparency of transnational police cooperation within the European Union John L.M. McDaniel (and Anita Lavorgna)
1:55pm Comfort Break
2:00pm Questions and Discussion
All participants will be entered into a FREE PRIZE DRAW to win a copy of the book, worth over £100!
All welcome, free to attend
14th May 2019
Prisoners as Audiences of British Prison Films: An Emotive Dialogue
Dr Victoria Knight, Community and Criminal Justice Division, De Montfort University (with Dr Jamie Bennett University of Oxford)
This novel ethnography explored how 10 life sentence prisoners watch and respond to films that are intended to re-present the world in which they are deeply immersed. This session will focus on the emotive dialogues that followed the viewing of 5 contemporary British films. For the first time this study brings us closer to understanding prison film from an informed audience’s perspective- the prisoner. Their readings are complex and enmeshed in emotive responses to the ways in which film makers make the prison look and feel for popular consumption. Themes of violence, resistance, identity are entangled with their own readings of these films. As a result they bring renewed interpretations based on their lived experiences of deep incarceration. The context of consumption is powerful and does shape audience reception. The British films that will be discussed include Starred Up, Bronson, We Are Monster, Screwed and Everyday.
5th March 2019
“It feels bubbly”: Listening to the emotional climate in prison
Kate Herrity, University of Leicester,
What does sound do for how we understand order and emotion in prison? This talk was based on an aural ethnography conducted in a local men’s prison between February and August 2017, with the aim of exploring the significance of sound in prison society. Attending to sound demonstrates the significance of paying closer attention to the sensory in prison ethnography, prompting consideration of how this impacts our understanding of the emotional geography of prison, and what this teaches us about the perilous business of ‘working at’ order, with which much of prison life is concerned. What are the implications this presents for how we gauge and manage wellbeing for prisoners and prison staff, as well as how we understand the prison?
8th January 2019
The emotional dynamics of peer work in prison and probation
Sarah Nixon, University of Gloucester
When Women Return to Prison: Exploring the Dynamics of Female Recidivism in Jamaica
Dr Dacia Leslie, University of the West Indies
November 4, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom
Women’s Academic Network, the British Society of Criminology & Bournemouth University’s Centre for Seldom Heard Voices are delighted to host this presentation
Free to attend but please register:
March 23, 2020
The British Society of Criminology’s South Coastal branch, the Women’s Academic Network, and the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices at Bournemouth University welcomed Hannah Mason-Bish to talk on her current research on disabled and non-binary people’s experiences of touching in public.
Wednesday November 6, 2019 – 4pm
Building 58, Room 2097 University of Southampton
“There’s a recognition that we’ve got to do something different”: a socio-legal analysis of police decision-making in adult conditional cautions.
Cerys Gibson (University of Nottingham)
Light Refreshments Available
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
November 25, 2019 5pm in BG11 (Bournemouth House)
Bournemouth University’s Women’s Academic Network, Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and the British Society of Criminology’s South Coastal branch.
Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed Mother
Dr Emma Milne (Plymouth University).
Abstract: Women who kill their newborn children pose significant challenges to criminal justice – they have acted in a way that has led to the death of a child, and yet they often have substantial vulnerabilities that influenced their behaviour in the lead-up to the death. Analysis of court transcripts in such cases illustrates that concern of the courts lies not only in the killing of the child, but in the women’s failure to act as an “appropriate” mother and thus a suitable woman. These cases provide a lens through which to analyse the gendered assumptions that surround reproduction, including women’s sexual activity and behaviour during pregnancy. This presentation will explore the gendered experiences of these offenders and the criminal justice responses to their behaviour.
This event is free for staff, students and colleagues: all are welcome but please book via the Eventbrite link so that we can ensure sufficient space and catering.
Visitors are also welcome to join us at a local venue for further discussion and debate afterwards.
CANCELLED May 1, 2019 Hannah Maason-Bish (University of Sussex) “Getting Gender on the Agenda: Researching Hate Crime and Getting Critical”
February 20, 2019 Thomas Guiney (LSE) ‘When to release? Statecraft, legitimacy and the evolution of parole as a public policy concern’.
March 6, 2019 Coretta Phillips (LSE) “Dear White Criminology: Where Has All the Racism Gone?!”
March 27, 2019 Sacha Dark (University of Westminster) “Surviving through the Collective” (Brazilian Prisons)
February 6, 2019
Iain Brennan (University of Hull)
“The earliest opportunity: What do we know about police-led diversion following arrest?”
South branch (in association with the Mannheim Centre London School of Economics)
All public events at the LSE were postponed from 23 March 2020 until further notice, due to COVID, and LSE’s commitment to the safety and wellbeing of its community.
Postponed until further notice ‘Critical Reflections on Evidence-Based Policing’, a Mannheim Centre Seminar
March 25, 2020
The seminar was supported by the British Society of Criminology Policing Network and the British Society of Criminology Southern Branch. Participants will receive discount vouchers for N. Fielding, K. Bullock and S. Holdaway (eds.), (2020) Critical Reflections on Evidence-Based Policing, Routledge.
See more here
Postponed until further notice May 13, 2020
LSE (Alumni Theatre)
Young Men’s Experiences of Long-Term Imprisonment
Rachel Tynan (Goldsmiths)
Chair: Johann Koehler (LSE)
Postponed until further notice June 10
LSE (Wolfson Theatre)
From King’s Cross to Soho:
Innovative approaches to studying gentrification, gender, sex work and space
Erin Sanders-McDonagh (University of Kent), Lucy Neville (University of Leicester)
and Magali Peyrefitte (Middlesex University)
Chair: Janet Foster (LSE)
March 11 2020
LSE (NAB 1.07)
Constraints and opportunities in transnational drug markets:
A social network analysis of cocaine and heroin supply to Europe
Giulia Berlusconi (University of Surrey)
Chair: Mike Shiner (LSE) (TBC)
February 12 2020
LSE (NAB 1.07)
Living in hostile environments: Illegality assemblages and everyday experiences of ‘illegality’
Nando Sigona (University of Birmingham)
Chair: Coretta Phillips (LSE)
January 22, 2020
LSE (Wolfson Theatre)
The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales
Paul Rock (LSE), with special guests (TBC)
Chair: Tim Newburn (LSE)
December 11, 2019 LSE (Alumni Theatre)
Jo Phoenix (Open University).
Youth, Justice and Community: An Alternative Vision for Dealing with Youth Crime
Chair: Janet Foster (LSE)
Nov 13, 2019 LSE (NAB 1.07)
Magnus Hoernqvist (Stockholm University/Mannheim Centre Visiting Fellow)
The Pleasure of Punishment
Chair: Amanda Sheely (LSE)
16 October 2019
Book launch and symposium, The Politics of the Police, 5th Edition.
Kings College, 8th floor of Bush House, 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG.
12 June 2019
Challenges, Innovation and Reform in the Policing of Drugs
Panel with Matt Bacon (University of Sheffield), Jack Spicer (UWE Bristol) and Niamh Eastwood (Release)
29 May 2019
Contemporary Crime Control in Historical Context: From the ‘New Police’ to the ‘Transformation of Policing’?
David Churchill (University of Leeds)
20 March 2019
The Prison Boundary: Between Society and Carceral Space
Jennifer Turner (University of Liverpool)
20 February 2019
Hate Crime and the Legal Process
Abenaa Owusu-Bempah (LSE) and Susann Wiedlitzka (University of Sussex)
16 January 2019
Reading Pictures: Art History and the Sociology of Punishment
Eamonn Carrabine (University of Essex)
South West Branch
Research Seminar at University of Plymouth
‘Dangerous Drugs’ in the Contemporary Era
10th December, 2020 – Live event hosted on Zoom
To mark the centenary of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920, the BSC South West Branch is hosting a research seminar that will stop and reflect on the legacy of drug prohibition.
- Tammy Ayres (University of Leicester) and Stuart Taylor (Liverpool John Moores University): The Legacy of the Dangerous Drugs Act: The dichotomies of the drug apartheid
- Steve Wakeman (Liverpool John Moores University): Moral Economies of Heroin Addiction: Implications for ‘Progressive’ Drug Policy Reform
Research Seminar at University of Plymouth
December 12, 2019, 1400-1600. Babbage Building 410.
Dr Alexandra Fanghanel, University of Greenwich, The Pillory and the Ban: BDSM, rape culture and sex positive imagination
Dr Ben Colliver, Birmingham City University, Re-imagining Hate Crime: The Role of (In)Visibility in Hate Crime Victimisation
Southern Perspectives upon Policing, Security and Social Order
Seminar and roundtable June 27, 2019, University of Brighton, Falmer campus
Critical scholarship from Southern and Post-Colonial criminology has posed new challenges to dominant criminological thinking about law and ‘order’, policing, security and the state. ‘Southern’ forms of policing and security, often evolving in post-colonial contexts, have frequently been more militarised and violent, deployed in often more weaponised environments characterised by profoundly racialized hierarchies and material inequality.
What do these developments mean for rethinking ‘justice,’ policing and ‘security’ today?
Key speakers included:
Dr Viviane Cubas, Prof. Kristian Lasslett, Dr Sacha Darke, Dr Roxana Cavalcanti, Prof Phil Stenning, Prof Ben Bowling, Prof John Lea, Prof Peter Squires.
Critical Directions in Green Criminology
Date: April 2, 2019
Joint event with BSC Historical Criminology Conference 2019
Linking past and present in criminological research
9-10 April 2019
Prof Barry Godfrey (University of Liverpool)
Dr Kate Lister (Leeds Trinity University)
For full details see Historical Criminology Network
Date: 30 January 2019
The Role of the Intelligent Machine in Organized Crime: An interdisciplinary research event
Venue: Bristol Law School