Crime, social justice and policing

Students on our PhD and professional Doctorate programmes are valued for their vibrant contribution to the research environment. Our doctoral alumni are employed in the university sector, research, industry, government departments and criminal justice agencies. Doctoral projects by students under the academic supervision of cluster members include:

Members of this research team also make a significant contribution to the development and extension of criminological knowledge and social theory in general – helping to locate current, emerging and future potential challenges in their wider cultural and socio-economic context. This in turn contributes to our ability to work with partners in ‘horizon scanning’, the prompt identification and analysis of emerging challenges and the formulation of strategies for proactive early intervention.

• Professor Mary Corcoran: ‘Lifting the lid’: an exploration of ‘social story-making’ as generative justice with crime-affected people and communities. Research partners are Safe Ground; Prof Fergus McNeill (University of Glasgow); Prof Beth Weaver (University of  Strathclyde); Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, London.
• Dr Helen Wells and Dr Santiago Amietta: How can digital evidence submissions from the public be used more effectively to reduce road offending and improve road safety? Funded by the Road Safety Trust and in partnership with Lincolnshire Police Keele University and Lincolnshire Police working to improve road safety using dash cam footage - Keele University
• Dr Helen Wells and Dr Will Andrews: INTERACT (Investigating New Types of Engagement, Response and Contact Technologies in Policing) ESRC funded, and in partnership with Professor Liz Aston (Napier, PI), Dr Megan O’Neill (Dundee), Professor Ben Bradford (UCL). INTERACT (Investigating New Types of Engagement, Response and Contact Technologies in Policing) | College of Policing
• Dr Anne-Marie Day: Exploring racial disparity in diversion from the youth justice system (2022 – 2025) Nuffield funded, and in partnership with Prof John Pitts, Dr Tim Bateman, Dr Isabelle Brodie, and Dr Timi Osidipe (University of Bedfordshire). Other projects include evaluating Staffordshire County Council’s Saplings and VASP projects – both aimed at supporting children at risk of exclusion from education and/ or care. Anne-Marie has also recently completed an evaluation of the Youth Justice Board’s Pathfinder ‘Constructive Resettlement’ Project in partnership with the South and West Yorkshire Resettlement Consortium. Please see Anne-Marie_Day - Keele University for details of further projects and research interests.
• Dr Evi Girling: Place, Crime and Insecurity in Everyday life ESRC funded. Evi Girling is a PI on this project which is a partnership with Professor Ian Loader (University of Oxford), Professor Richard Sparks (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Ben Bradford (University College London). About the Project - Security In Place. In the mid-1990s Evi Girling, Ian Loader and Richard Sparks conducted an ESRC two-year study of people's fears and feelings towards crime and social order in Macclesfield in Cheshire (see
• Crime and Social Change in Middle England (2000). Our current project has enabled a unique opportunity to return to Macclesfield, a quarter of a century later, to undertake a new study of people's everyday experiences of security and insecurity against the backdrop of two decades of rapid social, political and technological change (notably, the digital revolution, migration, austerity, and Brexit).
• Dr Liam Wrigley. Current research interests: Social justice, youth studies, pre-emptive criminality of young people, care, social isolation, meaningful relationships and loneliness. Liam has previously acted as joint investigator on a UREC funded project concerning young people, children and research ethics (University of Sheffield), supported by the British Sociological Association. Liam is an external member of the Centre for Loneliness Studies (Sheffield Hallam University), where Liam has previously collaborated with Professor Andrea Wigfield. Please see Dr Liam Wrigley – Keele University for further details.
• Dr Santiago Amietta: Lay participation and democratic legitimacy in context:  An ethnography of jury trials in Buenos Aires. Funded by the Raíces programme of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Argentina, this 4-year ethnographic project is delivered in partnership with Dr Leticia Barrera and Dr Andrea Lombraña from the Interdisciplinary School of High Social Studies (EIDAES) of the University of San Martin and the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET, Argentina). This project builds on Santiago’s interests on lay participation in criminal justice and other instances of state and community punishment, and people’s everyday experiences of law and legal institutions.
• Dr Tony Kearon – ongoing work with Staffordshire Police and Staffordshire County Council through the Staffordshire Centre for Data Analytics (SCDA) -  projects – Domestic Abuse Outcomes (completed December 2022), Violent offending, Anti-Social Behaviour (both ongoing 2023)
• Dr Clare Griffiths - currently working with a local charity (Engage Communities, Stoke-on-Trent) to evaluate how the use of sports can act as a diversion away from crime amongst young people. Other recent research projects and publications have included using a narrative methodology to explore undergraduate student motivations to study criminology; and adopting a ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) framework to critically analyse the UK Government’s 2021 ‘New Plan for Immigration’.  Other areas of research interest include fear and insecurities around crime; the criminalisation and securitisation of migration; 'othering' and minoritized communities; community social control; 'social cohesion'; and police-community relations.
• Clare Griffiths: Negotiating hostility and hospitality: Rural Shropshire and the interpretation, enactment, and resistance to national policies about immigration and asylum (QR Policy Support Fund June ‘23 – Aug ’24). The research seeks to understand how local governments and organisations in a rural area may interpret, enact, and also contest, wider national policies (and political narratives) about immigration and asylum in the UK.  The research includes interviews with stakeholders based in Shropshire,  refugees, people seeking asylum, and local residents.