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Owning Success
Having been posed the question about what success might look like for students, I pondered for a few days trying to conjure up an appropriate answer. You might think the answer is simple, after all the Oxford Dictionary defines ‘success’ as ‘The achievement of a desired result or outcome; the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.’ But what is that desired result or outcome? For students and many others, I would suggest that the simple answer that comes readily to mind is a good degree.
Some will have looked beyond this perhaps suggesting that a desired result would be a good degree leading to a good job. But such statements feel a little too simple, what is a good degree and what is a good job? If we were to stick with generally accepted definitions, then a good degree is one where a student obtains a first or a 2:1and a good job is one that is defined as a graduate job. Such definitions though serve to devalue both the achievements of many students and of the jobs that students take up.
Students are all different, come from diverse backgrounds and deal with a plethora of social, economic and personal circumstances. Achievement or what we might deem as success is only truly measured by taking these multiple, often hidden, facets of a student’s life into account. Several of our students find work after university in organisations where the class of degree has little relevance, but the work makes a real difference to society; work in charitable organisations come to mind. What many of these students have demonstrated is that through their studies and engagement with their course they have become able to understand the world through a different, far more critical lens. They can show confidence, have conviction, argue their case, they can provide leadership where it is needed and above all they are able to show empathy, something sadly lacking in contemporary society. And that to me is real success. I
t is not what you can spout out parrot fashion from a book, not an AI generated essay; it is when the light comes on and a student can see what they did not see before, they attempt what they would not attempt before. Success is part of a journey, but one where students have knowledge and skills to navigate to where they, and they alone, want to be. Success is not what others define for you, success is whatever you decide it should be.
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Data…
As we draw closer to the end of semester 2, Criminology students across the 3 cohorts will have recently submitted, or be in the process of submitting, assessments which contain research data. Glorious criminological research data. CRI1011 have their research report looking at an interview transcript. CRI2013 have their research project looking at observations whilst on a research placement. And the third years submitted their dissertations back in April: lots and lots of different data. But as most research methods students will know, there are strengths and weaknesses to all data, and the data is intrinsically linked to the research question, aims and objectives. But data exists outside of our research bubble as well. Think about how many websites have asked for/taken/stolen/used/stored/sold our data!
Data serves different purposes and has different impacts. Back in September 2025, the Department for Transport published their ‘Reported road casualties Great Britain: motorcycle factsheet’. Some key findings: from 2004-2024 motorcycle traffic decreased by 6%, from 2020-2024 92% of motorcycle killed or serious injured casualties were male and in 2024 340 motorcyclists were killed in Great Britain (Department of Transport, 2025). Some data: but what does it mean? Quantitative data holds an important part in our daily lives as it tends to provide us with the ‘how’s’ and ‘what’s’. So, we can see only 8% of motorcyclists killed or serious injured casualties were female but the factsheet does not tell us how many motorcyclists in Great Britain identify as female? We could think about how many hold a licence but this does not necessarily mean they are active riders. It doesn’t explain why there is such a difference across gender, and there is no data about race. So I guess whilst there is data there is also lots of missing data. And I think this is an important point to remember: quantitative data can be perceived as providing the bigger picture, the quantity, but even then it is often only part of the picture.
The data from the Department of Transport (2025) also doesn’t tell us anything about who these people are: it has reduced them to a percentage. There is no story about who they were, why they ride, where they were going or what their hopes and dreams were. But it does give us an overview: it gives is the what. But I guess the question is do we need the why, the story, the narrative? We are fortunate (although it might not always feel like it) to live in a world full of different types of data! It is a data saturated society in which we live. Often at tip of our fingers, with a tip tap of the keyboard (across devices). But sometimes it can be difficult to manage, to understand and to recognise what’s missing. Data can be overwhelming. It can also be challenging to know you, or someone you know, is part of the data but at the same time be completely absent from it. The riders who have lost their lives in motorcycle accidents are reduced to numbers: they are in the data but who they are is unknown.
As the second years begin to think about their dissertation proposals, it’s a good time to reflect and think about the data we are exposed to, the data we want to collect and the data which already exists. In a society so saturated with data it might not always be relevant to keep adding to it, and instead might be more relevant to think about making sense of some of the data which already exists…
References:
Department of Transport (2025) Reported road casualties Great Britain: motorcycle factsheet [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-motorcyclist-factsheet-2024/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-motorcyclist-factsheet-2024 [Accessed 14th May 2026].
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A head full of AI free magic
It’s been an interesting few weeks discussing ethics and professionalism with my students, well those that turn up, but that’s a different debate, albeit I guess, in a way linked to the essence of this blog. As usual, my head is full of what a former colleague would describe as ‘magic’. Lots of different seemingly daft ideas, formulated into some narrative that makes sense to me but is difficult to convey to the rest of the world. The latter I’m sure is not peculiar to me, it happens to most people when they have to start writing something, some call it writers’ block, I just call it searching for the starting point. The daft ideas though, I proudly claim as my own. And that is why so often I end up writing a load of ‘stuff’ and then deleting it or at least some of it. In writing, I’m aided by some spell checker built into the software that I’m using and suggestions, also built into the software, about grammar and sentence construction. The latter often hinders rather than anything else, ‘no I do not want to revise the sentence to be more succinct. Your succinctness makes no sense to me and does not convey what I want to say’. A bit of a ramble so far I know, but I’m not going to change it because I want to convey the head full of ‘magic’ phenomenon (those of you that can remember it, can now sing the little ditty that will stick in your head for the rest of the day) and the writing process. You no doubt will have noticed, well those of you that still have a pulse and the will to live, I have made no mention of AI. No use of AI to convey my head full of ‘magic’ ideas, no use of AI to help me start writing. Why, well let me put it to you very succinctly, these are my ideas, it’s my head full of ‘magic’. It does not belong to some machine, whatever appears on this screen, whilst I am writing, is mine and mine alone. I cannot imagine a time when I will be so devoid of thought, ideas, creativity or ability, that I will resort to asking a machine to provide me with the answer or the output. What would the answer look like if I did? Some verbose monologue that is boring, has little or no substance, is devoid of meaning and in the case of academic work, if this were such, is supported by pseudo or obscure, tentatively subject linked, or even fictitious, references. Verbal diarrhoea on screen. If you want evidence of this, ask any discerning academic about more recent student essays. I say discerning for good reason, a reason that I hope to make apparent in a short while.
Let me digress just a little. Recently in the news there has been momentum around the use of mobile phones by young people, or more to the point, what some will say is misuse of phones. Or, the more cynical and critical amongst us might say the abuse of young people by multinational tech giants. There to make money, tech companies have used algorithms, heuristics and goodness knows what to ensure young people are hooked on social media. To their credit, they have also invested vast sums of money trying to limit online abuse and harmful content. But let’s be honest, it’s like farting and then running around with some aerosol to try to cover up the smell. It still stinks but the air is a little better in a few places. Society and government are waking up to the harm caused by the use of technology by young people in this context and we have seen some countries introduce an outright ban on use by under 16s. Something being mooted in this country. Some schools have banned the use of phones in the classroom and as a consequence have seen youngsters returning to healthier past times like playing football or chatting, and of course misbehaving. I would suggest that we have been well behind the curve when it comes to realisation of the harm that is being caused to young people. As parents, we have even colluded in it, albeit more often than not, unwittingly. Those in education systems have probably done the same. But this seemed to creep up on society almost organically, fertilised by businesses whose raison d’être is to make money regardless of cost to humanity. Although they have always dressed it up as progress and of benefit to individuals and society at large. The emperor’s new clothes comes to mind.
But what of AI? There seems to be a clamour by government that as a country we need to jump on the AI bandwagon. AI is being foisted upon us, much the same as social media and the internet has been, by tech companies. We are being told the next generation will need to be AI savvy. But what does that mean? Whilst all of this is going on, there is growing research showing that AI is crippling people’s cognitive abilities. That AI will stop us from being able to analyse and be critical ourselves. Technology does this. Think about spelling, no longer do you need to worry about spelling because it is done for you, grammar, pretty much the same. No need to calculate things in your head, you can use a calculator, no need to remember phone numbers, they are all in your mobile phone, no need think up ideas, AI will do that for you, no need to read, AI will summarise it for you, no need, just no need. I am human but I have no need to think for myself.
And yet, armed with this knowledge individuals in educational institutions plough headlong into promoting AI to their students. This can help you find sources, this can help you when you are devoid of ideas, this can help you make your work better, this can help you …. Stop thinking for yourself. I and most of my colleagues are able to think for ourselves because we have grown up having to. I know what I know now, which as an aside is very little, because I have had to think for myself, work things out for myself. Along the way I have been aided by all sorts of people in all walks of life, but I am who I am because I can think for myself. But educational establishments these days concern themselves almost psychopathically with student numbers, finance and results. There seems to be little understanding of what education really means or for that matter, little concern. Institutional reputations are upheld at all costs, individual reputations forged on sycophantic behaviours with little regard to the impact on students or colleagues. Within this, institutions, driven by government and more importantly business rhetoric make AI central to their vision, their mission.
I wonder whether in a few years’ time there will be an inquiry somewhere, that suggests we have deprived a whole generation of the joy of being human. I wonder whether someone will say those individuals and institutions that so frivolously dabbled with AI, using students in a social experiment, were quite simply morally bankrupt in their drive to further their own ends. And at least some of my students know what Immanuel Kant would say about that!
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An academic reflection – from BA to book!
When I reflect on my journey into academia it does feel surreal at times. From starting a BA in History and Criminology, to a Masters in Criminology and Criminal Justice to my PhD in criminology. It has been quite the journey, and each qualification came one after the next. I often wonder if the quick movement from one to the next allowed for full reflection into the achievement, the journey and how I viewed myself as I became closer to the world of academia. I started my journey into academia in 2020 towards the end of my PhD, and just after the first Covid-19 lockdown. Technically I was in the world of academia on paper but still learning from others in the field and relying on their expertise and guidance. However, I think being in this position was positive and I continue to still seek guidance and expertise from others that have experience and knowledge within the field.
After completing the PhD and minor corrections, there was time for reflection, alongside another opportunity of turning the PhD into a book. The process of creating the book was one of pride and doubt. Suddenly, having full creative license so to speak without the guidance of supervisors felt like unchartered territory, particularly as I had been doing the PhD part time from October 2016 to January 2023. Moreover, I had to think about how the book would be different from the PhD, what it needed to convey and how to improve its accessibility. I like to think the book offers the most important parts of the PhD in a format that is more accessible, condensed and engaging.
Each chapter plays an important role, with the first few chapters laying the foundations for the themes in the remainder of the chapters. To avoid turning this into a book review, instead I highlight the chapter that holds a special place in my heart, Chapter 4 – Monologues and Table Reads: Identity Trees and Lived Experiences. This chapter introduces the identity tree task I completed with a number of Black women in prison. The task itself represents vulnerability, from both me and the participants, difficulty (as the process of explaining and supporting the women through the task was not always easy), and change. It marked a change as it was a clear move away from a traditional method of capturing data and a different way of engaging with participants. I learnt from the participants as much as they learned from me. Furthermore, power dynamics were reduced; it just felt like a group of Black women sharing stories and encouraging resilience and support, even though the latter was not always explicit. In this chapter you get to see and hear about the experiences of these Black women and the events that shaped their lives prior to imprisonment. Their stories reveal the importance of intersectionality and the complexity of our identities.
So as I embark on making the contents of the book more known to a variety of audiences, please be part of the process. You can do this by asking questions about the book, sharing it on your platforms, attending events regarding the book and getting the voices of the Black women in this book out there. My book launch, at the University of Northampton, offers an opportunity to hear about some of the themes in the book, the process of conducting the research and further hopes of what can be done to support Black women in prison. All who attend will be entered into a raffle to win a free copy of the book. Please see the link below for further information about the event.
Black Women in Prison Book Launch
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Not reading criminology? That’s criminal!
There are two kinds of criminology conversations I get embroiled in these days! Those with people who read criminology where we discuss many social/cultural phenomena under a specific lens or those with people who find criminology interesting, but consume popular crime instead. The first group with varying level of engagement is beginning to decode some tell-tell signs in current events, using their knowledge of the discipline, as a deciphering mechanism. The second group is quite different. Their understanding of crime is based on dramatisations and literary conventions around plots and characters. Even real crime is harbouring under the guise of some “exclusive” journalistic exposé…far from any basic criminological understanding.
Years ago, a colleague from Sociology told me a story regarding a family event. They were completing their PhD in the discipline, and they were questioned by an elderly person, as to what they would do when they finished their thesis. They responded in the usual way many graduate students tend to, about hoping to get into academia or get some funding for some further research. The elderly person didn’t seem satisfied…. they prompted further. What will be your specialism? What will you be able to tell people that you are proficient in? Society and people, the colleague replied! That’s hardly a skill, the old relative replied; we all live in society! The colleague was equally intrigued and offended. They thought that by offering a succinct response it would have helped their relative to understand without being confounded with notions on symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. This was a little anecdote that resonates with many social scientists, criminologists included, that whilst they try to explore people and culture around them, they are becoming distant to the actual people around them.
The degree of challenge in recent years seems to increase for disciplines where people in general have a vague idea of what it is. Many try to use psychological terms to explain other people’s behaviours, without realty appreciating, the clinical and scientific conditions of the term. That is relevant to criminology too. The representation of crime for public consumption has introduced some of the discipline’s terms into everyday parlance. From forensic terms on profiling, to the origins of criminality, expectations on crime are forged. A criminologist’s reaction to popular criminology pundits tends to be, well not quite, only to be met with disbelief of the criminology they know!
One of the ways to appeal to those interested in popular criminology and take them to the discipline will be to add some facts and figures that promote reality. Perhaps but that has been done before but only to give a gloss of “legitimacy” in fiction. It makes it more compelling, but it doesn’t really offer the depth of knowledge. To understand criminology, one must read criminology. The history is filled with colleagues who brought their imagination to the discipline. From Bonger’s Criminality and Economic Conditions to Jock Young and The Criminological Imagination there are books and papers that are waiting to be read by a new audience to try to figure out these ideas.
Maybe we all live in society and heard about crime and even experienced it, but to understand it we need some criminology. The discipline, as with all social sciences, is a dialogue between people ready to carry forward the next constructs that shall appear as crimes. If we read them and take part in these conversations maybe the area of harsh punishments, exclusion and persecution may not be as appealing. We are an academic discipline but at the same time we open the discussion to our community. So if you are neither a student, graduate, nor fellow academic and you are interested in criminology, why don’t you come to visit? https://www.northampton.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us/open-days/
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What should criminologists talk about?
Recently, Criminology with Psychology graduate, now PhD student @zo3conneely wrote an entry focused on the rise of the Reform Party in British politics, which you can find here. In response, we received a comment via social media, asking what this entry had to do with Criminology. As we always say in Criminology, all questions are welcome and valid, after all, for many of us our mantra is ‘question everything’! From a lay perspective, the question indicates a particular understanding of academic disciplines, it presupposes that Criminology has a very narrow focus. In this view, criminologists should stay in their own lane and focus purely and simply on what is commonly understood as crime, i.e. actions which are against the law.
But hang on, doesn’t that fall under the purview of those who study or practice criminal law, something neither I not Zoe have undertaken? Alternatively, is it the business of those who work in the field of criminal justice, investigating and processing those believed to have been involved in law-breaking? Again, not something either Zoe or I have experience of. If my colleagues in law and criminal justice are the experts in actions against the law, where does Criminology fit in and why include a discussion on political parties such as Reform in a blog dedicated to the discipline?
However, the answer is more complex than the original question would indicate. The answer is also much longer than the question. Criminology has been described as a rendezvous or umbrella discipline, a space where everyone can gather to discuss crime from all perspectives. This includes disciplines as diverse as Drama, History, Literature, Philosophy, Psychology as well as many others, including Politics. It is therefore, expected that those who write for a Criminology blog will be drawn from a diverse range of academic backgrounds, for instance, whilst I have a BA and a PhD in Criminology, my MA is in the History of Medicine. For my fellow bloggers, their academic journeys will also be reflective of their curiosity and their developing academic knowledge and skills. It is therefore anticipated that each academic brings their own unique academic knowledge and personal experiences to the discussion table. It is this which enables Criminology to take a holistic approach, we don’t and should not seek consensus, but incorporate as many diverse views as is possible. Only then can we gain a real understanding of the phenomena we call crime, criminality, victimisation, and of course, the responses to such.
But what of crime itself? Do we all have a shared understanding of what ‘crime’ is? After all, much of the time we don’t see crime, only potentially some evidence that is has occurred. Furthermore, it depends very much on time and space. If we were living in 1960’s Britain, suicide, abortion and homosexuality would all feature heavily in our list of crimes. However, suicide was decriminalised in 1961, and abortion and homosexuality were partially decriminalised in 1967, with the latter further decriminalised in 2003. Likewise, if we were to look further afield we would crimes listed in statute books that we do not have here, for example adultery is a crime in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and was only repealed in Taiwan in 2020. Thus it is quickly evident that crime is not static, it can change drastically through time and place. We also have to recognise that crime can be decriminalised and recriminalised, for example the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the USA, removes the constitutional right for those pregnant to access abortions. If it taught us nothing else, the Covid-19 pandemic showed us rights can be granted and rights can be taken away, which means that criminologists need to keep a very careful eye on both the past and the present.
Whilst my colleagues in law have as their focus current legislation and how it is practised, and my colleagues in criminal justice seek to ensure that the law is enacted and used to the letter of that law, criminology is much freer. After all, we need to know who is making those laws and why. Whilst we can answer quite simply parliamentarians, this does not tell us very much. We also need to know who, for example only 14% of the current parliament belong to the Global Ethnic Majority, a smaller percentage than the population proportionately. Of these 90, 66 are drawn from the Labour Party, 15 Conservative and 5 Liberal Democrats. Likewise, at the 2024 election 40% of MPs are women, despite women making up over 50% of the UK’s population. Let’s not even get started on the disproportionate number of privately educated MPs, or the lack of visibility of disability, sexuality and so on…. Needless to say, the UK parliament does not look like the vast majority of the British public. Yet these are the people make our laws, and if we don’t understand that as a criminological issue, we will soon come unstuck.
We all need to understand what is happening once those laws have been passed, who is delivering justice for the UK? Whether we look at Judges, Barristers, Solicitors, we find a predominance of white men, only when we look at the magistracy we begin to find some real diversity. But don’t forget magistrates are unpaid, lay members of the judiciary, so it is perhaps unsurprising that women make up 57% of this particular field. So what about criminal justice practitioners? If we look at the police for England and Wales, over 91% are white, 65% are men. In relation to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service [HMPPS], over 54% are female, yet these are predominantly based within probation, not the prison service. So we begin to see that the people making, enacting and facilitation legislation and criminal justice do not look very much like the country’s population. Criminologically, this matters, how can we hope to tackle serious social harms like Violence Against Women and Girls [VAWG], homelessness, poverty etc when people have neither knowledge nor experience? Can we really talk achieve just outcomes if the people responsible do not look, sound like us, have very different, often privileged backgrounds which mean we have little shared experience?
Hopefully, this entry has gone a little way towards explaining why the discipline of Criminology (and of course, this blog) maintains an careful eye on politics, among a huge range of other interests. Don’t forget, Criminology is a positive discipline, focused on what could be, what ought to be, a fairer society for all of us.
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School’s out!
The end of the academic year comes in many forms and guises. The end of the examination period, the submission of a final piece of work, the release of the grades and many more ways you can say that’s the end of this year! Unlike the calendar year, the end of the academic year comes in the summer as a natural end to work. It is like the school year that was shaped centuries ago! The reason for the summer break was the need for the kids to work in the harvest, a tradition that has remained past the agrarian society.
So, what does the end of an academic year signifies? For the students, there is a sense of accomplishment as they have completed their course or level of study. All the hard work, coming to class, long hours of making notes to complete THAT assignment, and all the heartache preparing the exams finally paid off and they can see their labours paying off. It is also a natural intellectual boundary that takes them a step up in the way they see the world through the lens of their subject. For colleagues the end of an academic year is slightly different…the next academic year’s preparation is upon them, the paper that needed writing is now facing a fast-approaching deadline and the resetting of all these priorities as set by management.
Since joining academia, the process of end of summer, has changed significantly from the working on research and scholarly output to administrative tasks! For those interested in a career in academia, on top of working with others, enjoying a discipline and being involved in education a wider question on how well they can handle paperwork, albeit virtual, is part of the job description. That comes as part of the job, always did, it is that it feels more intertwined with what we do.
There is undoubtedly a change in the role education plays in peoples lives especially Higher Education. This is a sector that in the 1970s recruited less than half a million to now being near the three million mark. This massive rise on student number has changed the way we see high education and the role it plays in our society. This is not the education of the elite but the opportunity for all to embrace opportunities and explore areas of interest that will allow them to find themselves, employment, build a career and ultimately a life! Whilst HE is still expanding the job market is becoming increasingly competitive and the cost of living is forcing people to adjust in how they plan the future.
So, what will the future hold for the end of year hiatus? Financially HE is facing challenges, culturally it is under attack, and socially it is being critiqued around whether it offers what it was set up to do. All these are short- and long-term challenges and they are not going away. Some will affect in future, access to HE, others will question the content and the basis of academic freedom and finally with the onset of Ai, the scope of HE itself. Despite all, I am still hopeful that HE is not a degree nor a job opportunity but a moment in any person’s life that takes a step up. It is a very important human need to fulfil curiosity and to embrace a path that wasn’t clear at the beginning of the journey. The first academia was founded in an agora under a tree and maybe we get back to that, but in the end human intellect will need stimulation and that is where, despite all challenges, HE prevails.
Perhaps the future of higher education won’t be defined by buildings or systems, but by the enduring human need to learn, to question, and to grow. Whether under a tree in an agora or through the lens of AI, the pursuit of knowledge remains a profoundly human act—and that is where higher education will always find its purpose.
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25th Year Reflection
I have been part of Criminology at UON as BA Criminology student, then Associate Lecturer then Lecturer in Criminology for about 13 years in total. My last reflection on my Criminology journey was in 2020 as I had just embarked on my new role as a Lecturer in Criminology. Every now and then I reflect on how lucky I am to be able to have a job role which has the potential to encourage a passion for learning, reading, writing, critical thinking as well as other life skills.
When reflecting on the 25th year Criminology anniversary I think mostly of the old Park Campus that I used to frequent and study at as a student. It had quite a nice feel to it and there was also enough surrounding nature for a famous badger to make this place part of its habitat! There were less books available online when I was an undergraduate compared to today so I have fond memories of going to the library often to have a browse and coming away with as many criminology related books that I could fit in my bag at once. Finding places where I could study for hours that were less frequented than the main library also gave me a bit of a buzz. There also used to be a Pavilion bar near to where the majority of exams would take place, one of my favorite past time memories is sipping on a beer in the Pavilion just after the end of my final third year Criminology exam season, (whilst secretly thinking of how I thought the exams went much better than expected).
When reflecting I am also reminded of how lecturers like Dr @manosdaskalou and Dr @paulaabowles can be incredibly inspirational and influential at guiding academic paths (such as my own!). The re-occurring ideas that ‘criminology is everywhere’ and that we should ‘question everything’ has boded well for helping me to make difficult decisions and in thinking about how I interacted with people when I was working within crime related industries.
In more recent years staff and students have moved to a new campus, have worked and studied through the challenges that come with Covid-19 and contextual uncertainties. This year has had some highlights for me, such as working on a new module Imagining Crime. Whereby we used inspiration from the novel 1984 by George Orwell to task students with committing weekly ‘thought crimes’ by seeing/hearing/reading about something criminological and questioning this by using critical thinking. Listening to the development of critical thinking via the ‘thought crime’ method has been a delight. The flexible, creative and multidisciplinary nature of criminology is also quite fabulous for maintaining interest in criminology over a long period of time but also for venturing into new and less explored areas. For instance, staff and students in Imagining Crime had the pleasure of attending a guest speaker session with @saffrongarside about children’s literature and the environment this academic year – at a time when Northampton itself seemed to be struggling to cope with flooding. Of course, this did highlight the importance of seeing environmental issues as criminological issues, but also the importance of considering children’s books as criminologically cultural artifacts, was something completely new and intriguing for me. I also gained a lot from hearing what our students (who are predominantly) young people think about environmental issues outside of the mainstream media angles that I have seen.
To round up, I loved my student life whilst studying BA Criminology and I am sure many others will say ‘ditto to that’. Long may the love for Criminology at UON continue!
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A Love Letter to Criminology at UON
In 2002, I realised I was bored, I was a full-time wife and parent with a long-standing part-time job in a supermarket. I first started the job at 15, left at 18 to take up a job at the Magistrates’ court and rejoined the supermarket shortly after my daughter was born. My world was comfortable, stable and dependable. I loved my family but it was definitely lacking challenge. My daughter was becoming increasingly more independent, I was increasing my hours and moving into retail management and I asked myself, is this it? Once my daughter had flown the nest, could I see myself working in a supermarket for the rest of my life? None of this is to knock those those that work in retail, it is probably the best training for criminology and indeed life, that anyone could ask for! I got to meet so many people, from all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, religions and classes. It taught me that human beings are bloody awkward, including myself. But was it enough for me and if it wasn’t, what did I want?
At school, the careers adviser suggested I could work in Woolworths, or if I tried really hard at my studies and went to college, I might be able to work for the Midland Bank (neither organisation exists today, so probably good I didn’t take the advice!). In the 1980s, nobody was advocating the benefits of university education, at least not to working-class children like me. The Equal Pay Act might have been passed in 1970 but even today we’re a long way from equality in the workplace for women. In the 1980s there was still the unwritten expectation (particularly for working class children from low socio economic backgrounds) that women would get married, have children and perhaps have a part-time job but not really a career….I was a textbook example! I had no idea about universities, knew nobody that had been and assumed they were for other people, people very different from me.
That changed in 2002, I had read something in a newspaper about a Criminology course and I was fascinated. I did not know you could study something like that and I had so many questions that I wanted to answer. As regular readers of the blog will know I’m a long-standing fan of Agatha Christie whose fiction regularly touches upon criminological ideas. Having been born and raised in North London, I was very familiar with HMP Holloway’s buildings, both old and new, which raised lots of questions for a curious child, around who lived there, how did they get in and out and what did they do to the women held inside. Reading suffragette narratives had presented some very graphic images which further fed the imagination. Let’s just say I had been thinking about criminology, without even knowing such a discipline existed.
Once I was aware of the discipline, I needed to find a way to get over my prejudices around who university was for and find a way of getting in! To cut a long story short, I went to an Open Day and was told, go and get yourself an access course. At the time, it felt very blunt and reinforced my view that universities weren’t for the likes of me! Looking back it was excellent advice, without the access course, I would never have coped, let alone thrived, after years out of education.
In 2004 I started reading BA Criminology, with reading being the operant word. I had been an avid reader since early childhood (the subject of an earlier blog) and suddenly I was presented with a license to read whatever and whenever I wanted and as much as I could devour! For the first time in my life, people could no longer insist that I was wasting time with my head always in a book, I had “official” permission to read and read, I did! I got the chance to read, discuss, write and present throughout the degree. I wrote essays and reports, presented posters and talked about my criminological passions. I got the chance to undertake research, both empirical and theoretical, and lawks did I revel in all this opportunity. Of course, by looking back and reflecting, I forget all the stresses and strains, the anxieties around meeting so many new people, the terror of standing up in front of people, of submitting my first assessment, of waiting for grades….but these all pale into insignificance at the end and three years goes so very quickly….
In the summer of 2007, I had a lovely shiny degree in Criminology from the University of Northampton, but what next? By this point, I had the studying bug, and despite my anticipation that university would provide all the answers, I had a whole new set of questions! These were perhaps more nuanced and sophisticated than before but still driving me to seek answers. As I said earlier, human beings are awkward and at this point I decided, despite my earlier passion, I didn’t want to be put in a box labelled “Criminology“. I felt that I had finally cracked my fear of universities and decided to embark on a MA History of Medicine at Oxford Brookes. I wanted to know why Criminology textbooks and courses still included the racist, sexist, disablist (and plenty more) “theories” of Cesare Lombroso, a man whose ideas of the “born criminal” had been discredited soon after they were published.
But again the old fears returned….what did I know about history or medicine? What if the Criminology degree at Northampton hadn’t been very good, what if they just passed everyone, what if I was kidding myself? Everything at Brookes felt very different to Northampton, everyone on the course had studied BA History there. Their research interests were firmly centred on the past and on medicine, nursing, doctoring, hospitals and clinics and there was me, with my ideas around 20th century eugenics, a quasi-scientific attempt to rationalise prejudice and injustice. Along with studying the discipline, I learnt a lot about how different institutions work, I compared both universities on a regular basis. What did I like about each, what did I dislike. i thought about how academics operate and started to think about how I would be in that profession.
I successfully completed the MA and began to think maybe Northampton hadn’t given me good grades out of our pity or some other misplaced emotion, but that I had actually earnt them. I was very fortunate, I had maintained connection with Criminology at UON, and had the opportunity to tip my toe in the water of academia. I was appointed as an Associate Lecturer (for those not familiar with the title, it is somebody who is hourly paid and contribute as little or as much as the department requires) and had my first foray into university teaching. To put it bluntly, I was scared shitless! But, I loved every second in the classroom, I began to find my feet, slowly but surely, and university which had been so daunting began to seep into my very being.
Fast forward to 2025, I have been involved with UON for almost 22 years, first as a student, then as an academic, achieving my PhD in the process It is worth saying that the transition is not easy, but then nothing worth having ever is. I have gained so much from my studies, my relationship with two universities and the experiences I have had along the way. It is fair to say that I have shed many tears when studying, but also had some of my very highest highs, learning is painful, just watch a small child learning to read or write.
Hopefully, over the past decades I have repaid some of the debt I owe to the academics that have taught me, coached me, mentored me and supported me (special mention must go to @manosdaskalou who has been part of my journey since day 1). My life looks very different to 2002 and it is thanks to so many people, so many opportunities, the two universities that have provided me with a home from home and all of the students I have had the privilege to engage with.
I am so delighted to have been part of Criminology at UON’s 25 years of learning and teaching. To my colleagues, old and new, students, graduates and everyone I have met along the way, I raise my glass. Together we have built something very special, a community of people committed to exploring criminological ideas and making the world an equitable place.
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Book blurbs: a necessity or frill?
I have always been, and imagine I will always be, a lover of books. Until the summer of last year, it has always been physical books. The feel, the smell, the shock when you drop it as you’re drifting off to sleep, the dampness of pages when you’ve picked it up too quickly after getting out of a pool or the sea on holiday and that beautiful crinkle crisp after the page dries. Physical books are beautiful (even the ugly ones). And this holds for academic sources, non-fiction books and novels! One of the joys of selecting a book (new or often second-hand charity gems), is reading the blurb. It might give you a brief introduction to characters you are following, or if an academic source it might provide you with a brief list of topics the book navigates. The blurb might also contain some quotations and reviews expressing the ‘excellence’ or ‘gripping’ nature of the book. And whilst this is generally a positive feature, since reading e-books (where I do not read the blurb or even access the blurb), I have started to wonder if the blurb is actually a hinderance to the potential reader…
Now, this entry is not to debate the great debate of the 21st century: e-book versus book. But rather the format of an e-book not having a blurb per se versus the blurb on the back of a book. I am fortunate enough to have a Kindle: one of my most prized possessions. It’s beautiful, it can be read in all environments (warmth setting and light setting is incredible), it’s lightweight and fits in almost all of my bags and many of my pockets #notsponsored, but I have never read a blurb of a book on the Kindle, and I can’t work out if I’m missing out or if this is actually an improvement of the ‘book selection’ process.
Some positives of not accessing the blurb on the e-readers is it has opened up my reading list astronomically. I have read and loved books I am certain I would never have picked up or purchased had I read what they were about. Some have been heavy, taxing reads but so worth it in the end, others have been bizarre and wonderful but not something I would have ever recommended to myself. Had these been physical books, having read the blurb, these would have been left by me on the shelf and therefore I would have lost out on the joy, wonder and sadness that these books had to offer.
There are of course issues with not reading the blurbs and these issues reinforce the importance of the feature as a necessity and not just a frill. I have also read a number of books I quite simply wish I hadn’t. And had I read the blurb I would have known not to start these monstrosities (once I’ve started, unfortunately my brain makes me finish – commitment [even to books] is important to my brain). I have also read some incredible books but at the wrong time: again had I read the blurb I would have known that this book is not a sensible choice given my headspace.
The issue is most likely me, rather than whether blurbs are actually necessary or just frill. And I’d imagine it’s better to have them and not use them, them not have them and miss them. But if they aren’t being used, they have no purpose and become redundant. Is this a wider symptom of the rise of the e-book or just a side-effect that no one else is concerned about but me? I do not know. But I find it strange how heavily I rely on blurbs with physical books and how void they are with e-books. Are e-books the beginning of the end for blurbs or am I over think this? Penny for your thoughts?
Thoughts from the criminology team 