Log in
Dr Neil McCaw's research has had a cultural, educational, and policy impact on individuals, groups of individuals, and organisations in the UK and countries overseas. His work on the development of The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Lancelyn Green Bequest (the largest collection of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes memorabilia in the world, of which he was appointed Academic Director in 2005) and detective and crime culture more widely has underpinned the following: a worldwide series of interlinked museum exhibitions visited to date by more than 350,000 citizens; a variety of connected educational projects involving school-age pupils of different nations; and regional public policy and heritage development work with a UK local authority that has informed tourism and cultural strategy. McCaw's research engages with communities, audiences and users far beyond academia through highly interactive media, written text, public exhibitions and televised airings of his expertise, all disseminated from its institutional, and regional, base in the UK to Germany, France, the USA, and Japan.
Dr Katharina Hall's blog Mrs Peabody Investigates (http://mrspeabodyinvestigates.wordpress.com/; henceforth MPI) has been fostering public debate on German, European and international crime fiction since January 2011. Beneficiaries include readers, authors, translators, publishers, critics and bloggers in 130 countries. With over 220,000 hits and 2,500 comments, MPI has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and is linked to by BBC Online, crime blogs, and publisher/author websites (C10). Providing a distinctive service of academically-informed reviews of high-quality crime fiction, MPI is regarded in the industry as 'a ground-breaking blog that is transforming readers' understanding and appreciation of international crime' (The Times crime-fiction critic).
Critical public policy debates on the likely effect of reductions in police staffing levels and on understanding the implications of crime patterns have been informed by findings from research conducted at the University of Birmingham by Dr Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay. The novel research contributed to raising public and practitioner awareness and understanding of the possible impact of cuts in police staffing, whether or not "prison works" and in explaining the apparent paradox of a fall in recorded acquisitive crime during a recession. These findings, which often challenged political perspectives and conventional wisdom, were initially publicised by an independent think-tank, Civitas, and followed-up in national press articles (one of which generated approximately 450 reader comments) and presentations to stakeholder agencies including central UK Government.
Research undertaken by Armitage and Hirschfield and colleagues from the Applied Criminology Centre (ACC) has made a significant contribution to crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Emerging from a wider programme of study in the field of environmental criminology, research completed at the University of Huddersfield since 2004 into `designing out' crime has been incorporated into national and local planning policy and procedures and has influenced international urban planning. This research has underpinned the UK Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) success in extending the designing out crime initiative, Secured By Design (SBD), to 350,000 homes, and in reducing burglary rates by more than half in housing designed to this standard.
Research in this Unit at NTU has:
(a) Changed the way victimisation is conceptualised, measured, and reported within official crime surveys;
(b) Transformed the methodological evaluation of the impact of security devices upon crime and repeat victimisation through the introduction of multi-level statistical modelling as opposed to bivariate cross-tabulations which constituted the state of the art prior to her work.
Professor Tseloni's research has directly informed the methodological training of crime survey analysts (including those working on the Home Office British Crime Survey), and contributed through the dissemination of Home Office guidelines to the day-to-day crime reduction practices and responses to crime of police forces in England and Wales.
Professor Ian Loader's research on the concept of `penal moderation' shaped the final report of the Commission on English Prisons Today and helped to inform the policy arguments of the UK's leading penal reform charity — the Howard League for Penal Reform. These arguments, in turn, influenced the criminal justice agenda of the Coalition Government. Loader's research on the politicization of crime and justice was also influential on the final report of the Justice Select Committee of the House of Commons on `Justice Reinvestment' (an initiative which seeks to create local financial incentives to invest in community penalties). Loader's research shaped the views of the Committee on how to build a political consensus for alternatives to imprisonment.
Research produced by UCL's Department of Security & Crime Science (SCS) and Jill Dando Institute of Security & Crime Science has been used in the UK and internationally to shape policies and guide practices using situational methods to prevent crime. Working closely with police forces, crime prevention practitioners and policy makers, SCS staff have provided evidence, expertise and advice to support particular crime prevention initiatives and approaches to crime prevention more broadly. The impact of the research is demonstrated by acknowledged contributions to policy, policing and crime prevention practices, and to fighting the specific crimes of bike theft and internal child sex trafficking.
Research on spatial patterns of crime at UCL has influenced police practice and has informed policy and its implementation in countries including Australia, Canada, UK, and USA. Our research has challenged conventional wisdom amongst police and policymakers about spatial patterns of crime. Working directly with police forces and through our continuing professional development training, we have spearheaded the use of crime mapping and forecasting methods in practice. Implementation has led to documented reductions in crimes such as burglary of between 20-66%.
According to the Home Office's 2009 report on organised crime, Extending our Reach, A Comprehensive Approach to tackling Organised Crime, serious organised crime is perceived as a local problem by British citizens. Foreign organised crime groups are not even mentioned. Allum's (Lecturer at Bath since 2002) research on the activities of the Neapolitan Mafia, the Camorra, in Naples and across Europe has highlighted the pervasive nature of this organised crime group, especially in its relationship with local economies and political elites. More importantly, her research has identified that English law enforcement agencies do not have the tools that are fit for the purpose of identifying the activities of the various Italian organised crime groups in the UK. Allum's research has thus informed policy debate and practice around the issues relating to Italian organised crime groups in Italy, in the UK and Europe. It has also improved the quality of evidence around Italian organised crime groups to enhance public understanding of the harm they pose to societies, the economy (in particular, in relation to money laundering activities), and the resilience of local politics in Italy and abroad.
PADS+ casts light on the causal mechanisms for crime, highlighting how the interaction between people and settings leads to acts of crime. As a result PADS+ has advanced the scientific basis on which policing and criminal justice strategy and crime prevention policies can be formulated in the UK and abroad. Three types of impact are claimed: (1) initiating a move away from a broad-brush risk factor approach to the explanation and prevention of crime towards a focus on key causal factors and mechanisms; (2) being recognized and utilized by policy makers; (3) contributing to social science education nationally and internationally.