Tuesday marked the 8th “official” birthday of our blog. I say official because although the site was created in November of 2016, the writing did not start in earnest until 3 March. Since that early foray into blogging, we’ve managed collectively to clock up quite a few vital statistics

Our 78 bloggers are made of the Criminology Team (both past and present), students and graduates, as well as a number of honorary criminologists. Some have written only one entry, perhaps reflecting on their dissertation, while others have and continue to contribute on a regular or ad hoc basis. It has to be said that 9 of our top 20 most read entries come from students/graduates, another two come from non-criminologists. Certainly graduate and student entries are always very popular. Our most read, continues to be the front page which contains the latest entries, but many of our entries have shown remarkable longevity. For instance, then student, now graduate, Natalie’s (@criminologysocietyuon) thoughts around the “true crime” documentary Betty Broderick remains our most read individual entry, clocking up views ever since the day it was published. This demonstrates the enormous appetite for “true crime” that many people have. Likewise, Dr Stephen O’Brien’s (@anfieldbhoy) reflections on the 30th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster continues to be well-read, particularly around the anniversary on 15 April. In the words of the poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox: ‘No question is ever settled, until it is settled right’ and there is certainly a long way to go to obtain justice for the 97.

As can be seen from the word cloud, which appears on the front page of the blog and below, Criminology unsurprisingly occupies the attention of most of our bloggers and entries. However, it is also clear that social injustice, inequalities and various forms of violence appear regularly within our writing. There is also a strong focus on learning and teaching, as well as evidence of the lasting generational impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (our best year for readership to date).

As you can see from the map the majority of our readers come from the UK and the USA, but we’ve also captured the criminological imagination of people from a diverse range of countries ranging from Albania to Zambia. Some of the countries can be explained through our bloggers’ diverse heritage, for instance, Greece, Nigeria, USA have obvious connections, others, we’ve no idea how our words have spread so far. Nevertheless, it is a very exciting to see the blog’s global reach.

As the saying goes, from small acorns to giant oaks, the germ of an idea has spread beyond any of our wildest dreams. The number of blog entries continues to grow on a weekly basis, it seems we never run out of criminological matters to write about. It has given all of us a space to ponder, to muse, to write through dark days and celebrations, and to continue to engage in Public Criminology. Similarly, the number of bloggers steadily rises, some are in their earliest foray into discovering Criminology, some have years of immersion in the discipline, but we are all learners. In the words of Nelson Mandela: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ so why would we ever want to stop learning?

When we started, we thought the blog would last for a year, maybe, either we’d run out of things to write about or we’d find other things to do with our time. Neither has happened and it seems there is still plenty of appetite from our bloggers and our readers. To both we raise a glass, without you, none of this would have been possible, so thank you! Now, let’s see how long we can keep this up!