Penology Research
Explore our work in penology, one of our areas of expertise in Criminology
Prisons and the probation services deal with some of the most excluded members of society, and research is needed to challenge the assumptions of the justice system and to promote change through good quality research and scholarly activity.
Through our penology research, we're working to better understand the role of punishment, and how this links with processes of justice and rehabilitation. Our work is helping shape how criminal justice practitioners work, by linking theory to practice in working with offenders.
Through the Ministry of Justice and the delivery of probation officer qualifications, we have strong links with the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies.
Our work is frequently published in leading academic journals within the field, including Critical Criminology, The Probation Journal, The Howard Journal, Prison Service Journal, and The Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology.
Our research covers the following key topics
- Penology and prisons
- Community justice
- Victimology
- Multi-agency working
- Rehabilitation studies
- Substance misuse
- Mental health
- Women and the criminal justice system
- Race and the criminal justice system
- Forgiveness
- Complexity theory
- Restorative justice
Methods
Our research relies on a variety of methods – including mixed method case study approaches, narrative hermeneutics, and interpretive phenomenological analysis.
Collaborations and funders
We've worked in close collaboration with charities and government departments to deliver research, including:
- One Small Thing – a charity working to promote Trauma Informed Care in Prisons, which has funded an evaluation study by Madeline Petrillo
- The Healing Trauma Evaluation Project – in this project we evaluated the Healing Trauma intervention in 7 women's prisons in England, and measured the impact of Healing Trauma on symptoms of trauma and offending-related behaviours among women prison residents. Our evaluation – which was presented at the House of Commons – concluded that Healing Trauma has positive impacts on depression, anxiety, PTSD, psycholgical distress, and trauma-related problems such as dissociation and sleep disturbance
- The Ministry of Justice – since 2003, we have contracted with the Ministry of Justice to provide qualifying awards for probation officers, and in that time over 2000 students have qualified as probation officers from the University of Portsmouth
- Dr Aaron Pycroft is also working with the Restorative Justice Council, the Criminal Justice Alliance, User Voice, the Police Foundation, the Corrymeela Community, the Forgiveness Project, the Frank Zeidler Center for Public Dialog and the North County Policing Cooperative (Missouri) to develop practices based on the relationships between forgiveness and justice.
Publication highlights
-
A more Nordic Norway? Examining prisons in 21st century Iceland
The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2018, doi: 10.1111/hojo.12244, Professor Francis Pakes and H. Gunnlaugsson
-
Multi-Agency Working in Criminal Justice: Theory, Policy and Practice
Edited by A. Pycroft. and D. Gough, 2019, Bristol, Policy Press
-
‘Revolution’: Marketisation, the penal system and the voluntary sector
Critical reflections: social and criminal justice in the first year of the coalition government, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, London, 2012, Dr Dennis Gough
-
Transforming Environments and Offender Rehabilitation: A Guide for Practitioners in Forensic Settings and Criminal Justice
Edited by G. Akerman, Dr Adrian Needs and C. Bainbridge, 2018, London: Routledge
Discover our areas of expertise
Penology is one of our 7 areas of expertise in our Criminology research area. Explore the others below.
Economic Crime
We’re looking at economic crime, assessing the methods used to combat it, and developing new ways to protect individuals and organisations from fraud, corruption, money laundering and intellectual property crime.
Forensic interviewing
We're exploring new and better ways to gather quality, reliable information from crime scenes and witnesses' minds – and helping develop protocols and practices that ensure this human data is protected and interpreted correctly.
Missing Persons
In our Centre for the Study of Missing Persons, we're identifying patterns of behaviour that precede a person going missing and working to change the policies and practices that determine how such cases are handled.
Cybercrime and Cybersecurity
We're exploring the growing threat and impact cybercrime at all levels of society, investigating the methods and motives of the people who commit it, and finding new ways to deal with them.
Policing
In the wake of a prolonged period of budget cuts, our work deals with the most-pressing issues facing the police service – from how police officers learn, to the individual factors that can influence an investigation.
Forensic science
We're taking a closer look at how science can help identify, eliminate, reconstruct and inform the ways in which crime is investigated – including through fingerprinting and DNA recovery.
Research groups
-
Transformative Justice Research Group
We're promoting research and scholarship that have the transformative potential for the practice of criminal and social justice.
Interested in a PhD in Criminology?
Browse our postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils – at our Criminology postgraduate research degrees page.