Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Youth and Social Justice

Currently we are prioritising research in two areas in this call for potential PhD research projects:

Child Stranger Abduction

The Centre for the Study of Missing Persons was founded last year in order to promote and advance research in the subject area of Missing People. The Centre has a partnership with Missing People, the leading charity in this area, and we are working very closely with the UK Missing Persons Bureau, SOCA and CEOP, who are the two leading policing bodies in this field. For more information about the Centre please see the link: www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/icjs/csmp

Within this framework a PhD project could study the subject of ‘child stranger abduction’. The project could focus on:

1. Identifying patterns of offending behaviour.
2. Identifying profile of victims, circumstances of disappearance and outcome of cases.
3. Explore the impact of the new strategy of ‘child rescue alert’ and its potential in solving these types of cases quickly and returning children safely.

The 'Troubled Families' policy agenda

Staff in ICJS are already engaged in research on the Troubled Families programme that aims to turn around the lives of 120,000 families by 2015. The key national issues that this programme seeks to address are: worklessness, crime and anti-social behaviour; and, children who are persistent absentees from school.

Within the framework of this policy agenda there are a range of possibilities that could be the focus of a PhD project.  The project could focus on:

1. Comparing responses to the Troubled Families programme across different sites (local authorities).
2. Investigating competing explanations of the issue and theories of change.

Or, working directly with a programme, agree a programme of work that best fits the requirements of a PhD and the priorities of the agency.