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Academic and Pedagogical Activism: Lets change what we can change

I feel some personal context should be provided as a preface to this rather long blog post…

…I chose an academic career path with a specific interest in activism (generally) not because ‘traditional’ protest action is defunct. Quite the opposite. As academics we have demonstrated that our passion for maintaining social justice, transparency, fairness, equality and employment rights, has not diminished. We displayed the collective nature of this passion several times in the past year, most recently through the involvement of over 70,000 staff from 150 universities across the country. As with a previous post, I stress that the thoughts contained here should not overshadow the issues we have raised, and will continue to raise, simultaneously through ongoing industrial action.

As a rather ‘average’ student when it came to attainment prior to starting my undergraduate degree, what shaped my passion for Criminology and my future career path was a combination of the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, but also the incredible student experience that I felt distinguished higher education from the boring, mundane, and out-of-touch schooling system in the UK; a system that often placed more emphasis on the reputation of the institution than the mental welfare of their pupils [I hasten to add, with the exception of my second sixth-form, which has a special place in my heart]. My student experience at university was characterised by a transparent, respectful, and crucially non-hierarchical form of learning. You felt like an adult, on the same level as others around you as well as the teaching team, and that there was nothing you were passionate about that you couldn’t reasonably pursue.

Over the years, however, I have become quite disappointed from seeing sheer refusal in some circles to even consider the student experience as playing a part of university life – the attitude of “they are not here to have a good time, they are here to learn”, which often brings back a lot of pent-up trauma from my schooling days; pigeonholing human beings into pre-characterised slots decided only by a handful of people, obsession with the quantification of success rather than provision of engagement, and an unwillingness to acknowledge uniqueness, neurodiversity, or simply that there were differences between individuals, some potentially requiring more attention.

Having since taught in several universities at varying levels, in starkly different spaces, and with students from an array of unique backgrounds, skills, talents and abilities, I have come to the realisation that these traditional schooling principles that previously governed higher education will always fail to gain traction or support in the contemporary world; from students, and from those academics who have thrived in progressive teaching & learning environments, where they would have failed if traditional practices had been employed. I have also reflected deeply on things that we can change as academics; things that are reliant on choice, and that transgress the traditional boundaries of strike action. Academic development is much more than research ‘impact scores’ or quantification of published texts/articles. It is a holistic process. Challenging dominant hegemony and helping to reinforce social justice is simply not possible without shifts at grassroots level; by actively being the change that we want to see. It is a process that requires active participation from all, rather than a dominant minority.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

While we are, first and foremost, criminologists, we are also more broadly social scientists. Despite some rather outdated beliefs that the discipline should only focus on “studying crime”, criminology is (and always will be) fundamentally an interdisciplinary subject, encompassing fields of sociology, psychology, legal studies, anthropology and philosophy…to name a few. We always ‘study crime’ in some sense, but this does require the level of fixation with denounced theoretical perspectives that have been historically used as a guise for genocide and ethnic cleansing under the banner of racial purity…but a much heavier focus on reframing the theoretical grounding of criminology to debates within the present – the here and now. As a descendant of genocide survivors from both sides of my family, even the thought of teaching students the nuanced intricacies of strategies and tactics that were used to justify murdering people (like my great-grandparents and their relatives) is unconceivable. Of course, it is important to know the past to learn from it, and to avoid a repeat of the atrocities we have seen in human history, but in such detail? What is being presented to the world as the core of criminological theory by elevating these intricate ideas onto the criminology pedestal of fame?

Our approach to knowledge production should therefore be free from isolation solely to our discipline or institution. Our only allegiance is to the production of this knowledge…knowledge that we are profoundly passionate about, irrespective of its spatial dimensions. Institutions should therefore be facilitators of this knowledge; breeding creativity to roam free from isolation beyond the dominant disciplinary interest, allowing all to extend friendly hands for research collaboration with others who may well disagree with our theoretical positions, encouraging learning from others’ experiences that are different from our own. In doing so, we can avoid the suppression of certain academic texts from entering our curricula under a variety of guises; freeing academia from research isolation into being able to engage with researchers or work that may be useful for personal academic or pedagogical development. To ensure that we are able to successfully advance academic knowledge, but also gain the type of research experience that will serve us positively in our future lives with enhanced research portfolios, we need to rethink our own positionalities in relation to collaborating with other academics and institutions that may differ from our own. It is possible that much of these struggles can be unconscious and rooted in understandable past struggles, bad experiences that have led to mistrust or a sense of hopelessness, but there is no better time to latch onto optimism than the present moment. After all, what are we without hope?

As social creatures, we must venture outwards and embrace the flux of knowledge and healthy collaboration. In a contemporary globalised world, we are intertwined with the social, political, economic and cultural negotiations of our own identities as academics, alongside being ongoing students of the social sciences. As such, aside from the issues to which we aim to draw attention through industrial action, we must reflect on whether we truly practice what we preach. Without this, we are doomed to being perceived simply as moaners from beyond, rather than creators of change from within. Speaking from experience of witnessing the long-term effects of this kind of mismatch between what is preached and what is practiced, in many institutions this is commonplace and, unless care is taken, it can often become problematic. It can both confuse students’ understanding of how their lecturing teams position themselves in relation to what they are teaching, but also affect the academic staff that may well have alternative theoretical or pedagogical views to the dominant narrative.

Co-Creation and Student Participation

In the interests of maintaining healthy staff retention within institutions generally, but within social scientific disciplines specifically, proper care must be taken to ensure that suggestions for co-creation are actively encouraged. Calls for genuine co-creation of curricula, of strategies to shape equality, diversity or inclusion (EDI) strategies, and anti-racist pedagogical practices can otherwise end up either sidelined, ignored, or simply dominated by only a few voices claiming to know it all. Care must be taken to ensure that, in the interests of maintaining healthy communication and morale more broadly, decisions are not made by a dominant few in advance of consultation processes for these things. Genuine co-creation requires:

  • Provision of a truly open forum where anything can be discussed without fear or reprisal;
  • Entering the space with a wholly open mind where anything is subject to change;
  • Full acknowledgement of one’s personal unconscious biases;
  • Acceptance of one’s own intersectional privileges that influence their ideas, but that also disadvantage others’ positions;
  • Active participation from all members in the forum;
  • Recognition that decisions cannot be made prior to the forum, but that improvement is an ongoing process, requiring regular collaboration, rather than enactment of decisions made separately.

As an ongoing process, this is merely a starting point, rather than an end point.

Academics and students are an integral part of this co-creative practice; pedagogical knowledge requires, rather than desires, student contribution. That does not mean this process is easy. It can be difficult, particularly if student attendance or engagement with teaching & learning sessions is low. However, there is no conceivable reason to suggest that we cannot promote continuous, critical, self-reflection of teaching & learning practices, which are known to have a largely positive impact on academic development, albeit with a small number of students if so be it. After all, as social scientists we quite rightly regularly and vocally criticise bureaucratic processes that aim to ‘measure’ success of actions and events, or try to ‘quantify’ experiences and social interactions. Therefore, we should dwell less on numbers in attendance or vague interpretations of ‘popularity’ of sessions, and more on the quality of these interactions. It is the quality that builds engagement, paving the stepping stones for positive student and staff experience at university level.

Innovative Assessment Strategies

A rather different way that student experience of university study can be improved is by revisiting the appropriateness of ‘traditional’, but largely pedagogically defunct, assessments like exams and in-class tests. If we are to be vocally critical of contemporary school-style practices that do not prepare students for higher education, we cannot in good conscience then replicate the same practices that fixate on teaching students simply how to memorise concepts, ideas or authors for one day of regurgitation. Add to this the stresses associated with preparation, time pressures and performance anxiety on the day, and we are left with an assessment style that no longer matches our developing approaches in tackling mental health in higher education. Exams in contemporary society can only serve as a means of boosting grades at the expense of progressive learning styles. It is an example of pandering to bad pedagogical practice simply to give a perception of success, one that once again relies on quantification as a measure of achievement. In eliminating these types of assessments, we can make room for more innovative and progressive styles that can prepare students for the future of employment (whether physical or digital); communicative, collaborative, and largely reflective tasks that make use of technological advancement and help to build on students’ existing skills and talents.

Innovative assessment styles can be inclusive of developing technologies and increasing student involvement in social media platforms. Why fight the craze of video-based platforms when they can be used to the advantage of academic development and employability? In modules that focus on developing knowledge and understanding of research methods (for instance), we can introduce students to increasingly digital methodologies. This will allow them individual autonomy to adopt methods that may well involve contemporary technological platforms or practices, not only shifting criminology away from the mundaneness of what has already been ‘done to death’ (in the worlds of a former academic supervisor), but can also serve as a physical demonstration that the synergy of ‘theory’ and ‘methodology’ does not have to be outdated or out-of-touch…that it can be applied anywhere and in any context provided it is applied in the correct fashion. It is up to our array of skill and talent as experienced academics to enable and facilitate students to be able to apply innovation to their passions.

Linked closely to this are in approaches of establishing the ethical integrity of written work, particularly large-scale projects like dissertations. While not to go into a debate about the appropriateness of written dissertations at this stage, care must be taken to ensure that research ethics committees do not conflate genuine ethical concerns or considerations with what may be personal methodological preferences relating to knowledge production and research feasibility – though this is something that can be tackled through establishing full transparency of the entire ethics process with students, including their entitlement to know who has commented on their work. Often, these challenges can be alleviated simply by reducing dependence on “in-house” disciplinary ethics committees and allowing students to submit their projects to independent ethics committees instead, ones external to their immediate discipline perhaps. After all, there are parallels across the social sciences when it comes to methodology and employment of innovative research methods. A ‘fresh’ pair of eyes can help to provide more objective commentary and avoid potential overlaps between ethical concerns and methodological preferences.

Student Engagement and Student Experience

Essential to facilitating students’ innovative passions are the relationships that we, as academics, build with them. Whatever our teaching & learning styles, whether we choose to create physical, digital or hybrid learning environments, synchronous or asynchronous content (or a combination of everything), fundamentally we should be building a positive, personable, non-hierarchical and entirely transparent rapport with students that breeds autonomy and individual responsibility for learning & development. This means also avoiding any overlaps between what is clear university policy with what we as academics simply ‘want’ or ‘desire’ when it comes to everyday teaching practices – this can sometimes create confusion. Transparency on what students are entitled to do, and conversely what they are perfectly entitled not to do, should be at the forefront of our relationship with them, but also this transparency needs to apply at all levels.

We also know that non-hierarchical relationships have a direct positive correlation with exercising individual autonomy and responsibility. Of course, some clear boundaries must be set in the academic-student relationship, as are done in all places of employment, within reason and common sense. However, where these boundaries become unnecessary and lack logical purpose are when (as I have seen in some academic institutions) they are used to create and maintain a hierarchy of knowledge or status. This is often evident when it is claimed that the path of the academic has been so riddled with difficulty, that the rite of passage to academic status is determined by the level of “trauma” the academic has suffered throughout the journey. It is a ludicrous presumption and can often breed animosity between a student and their lecturer. Our relationships do not need to be parental; whatever personal views we may have of student maturity, as adults, they simply do not require micromanaging or undermining. Students should be aware of the intricacies of their institutions, and who the people are that make decisions on their futures (i.e. their lecturers). As all adults, they are minimally entitled to this level of transparency and visibility.

Students are no less able or capable of producing knowledge – it may not be the type of knowledge that we may have become ‘accustomed to’ within academia, but…absent any methodological or ethical issues…this does not render the knowledge somehow less worthy than what is created in more (arguably) ‘elite’ academic circles (as is sometimes suggested). Our approach to gaining mutual trust and building a positive rapport with students is a crucial first step to ensuring that there is at least a minimal level of engagement. I find that one of the first things I communicate to students, particularly those who have recently commenced their studies, is ‘realistically-speaking, there is no difference between you and me. We are all humans. We are all academic researchers. We are all here for the same purpose; to learn about criminology. My only job is to facilitate your learning’. Of course, this means that students should demonstrate the depth and breadth of independent research required at this level of study – the common mantra still applies; “you get out of education what you put into it”. Though somewhere along the line, and it is unclear when or where, academics seem to have created for themselves a status of unchallenged godliness, one that can only be earned through mental distress. Being an academic is not a status for privilege. It should not be used as a form of power over student bodies; whether physically, psychologically, or pedagogically. It is simply a stage in a process of knowledge production.

At pedagogical level, the most common sticking point that can obstruct the relationship between students and academic staff, as observed in some places, is one of class. It is not always articulated, but it is clearly visible in interactions (or lack thereof) with students. Class is not merely economic status but a culmination of various capitals; social and cultural capital included. We know, for instance, that many students come from low socio-economic backgrounds; working-class homes, single-parent families and/or other challenging life experiences. As with most in neoliberal nations, many have their own struggles and unique stories, lives that we may never be privy to, that can shape behaviours or characters that we may never truly understand. As an institution and a team, we do well to acknowledge this. We take some steps, and do our best as academics, to try to mitigate some of these struggles wherever possible. However, this is an ongoing process and more can be done at varying levels.

For instance, we are aware that given varying degrees of cultural capital, many students will not engage with certain academic texts. This is not to say that the solution to this is to remove theory from our curricula – criminology is fundamentally a theoretical discipline – but there can be at least an appreciation that some texts require a certain degree of cultural capital that may never have been possible to attain throughout the struggles that students have experienced in their lives…regardless of their performance in, or experience of, prior education. Perhaps a rethink is needed of the elitist and white-centric nature of some texts, and/or the methods through which students are introduced to theoretical material might be useful, without the need to suggest that being a successful student is solely reliant on never leaving a library. This ties in closely with aforementioned innovative strategies to engage students, ways that transgress boundaries imposed by ‘traditional academia’ of talking at students, instead allowing them to be the co-creators of their own academic knowledge.

Academic Anti-Racism & Intersectionality

Tied to this are some issues surrounding social (in)justice. There needs to be an adequate level of acknowledgement of the requirement of truly anti-racist pedagogical practices and content. As a critical criminologist and anti-racist activist, it is no surprise that these practices are, and will always, be at the forefront of everyday decisions I make – not least because I was employed on the basis of my research and pedagogical interests in anti-racism. I often make the point that certain buzz words like ‘anti-racism’ and ‘decolonising the curriculum’ are banded about without adequate understanding of what these involve. Whilst we may all potentially agree that this is the case (or perhaps not, this is down to every individual), there is still a gap in knowledge and understanding even on the part of those who do agree with this statement…hence there being a decisive unwillingness to engage in any practices that carry the label of ‘anti-racism’ or ‘decolonising’ across universities. What is being missed is the purpose of these practices. Far from simply being non-racist, anti-racism is an everyday tool that can and must be exercised in all aspects of daily work life within academic institutions.

Much of the challenges of understanding what anti-racism really means, or how it can be utilised to improve teaching & learning, stems from a reluctance to acknowledge our own unconscious biases. Where, as social scientists, we often teach about intersectional struggles and the presence of global social injustice, we tend to overlook the fact that our everyday choices can contribute towards those exact injustices. Ongoing reflection on what texts are introduced to students can help alleviate some of these. Texts should prove to be more inclusive, demonstrate our commitment to shift away from white-centric understandings of crime and criminality, and demonstrate best practice when it comes to the use of appropriate discourse when it comes to ‘race’, so that students do not regularly replicate questionable racial terminology in assessments, and potentially also in later life. Yes, deeply ingrained structural racism across society (and in academia in general) means that many of the “legitimised” academic texts tend to be produced in, or relate to, the US and other Western nations. However, care must be taken to ensure that we are not inadvertently engaging in academic nationalism by restricting students to utilise texts that only refer to England & Wales, for instance.

Changing what we can change

So…given the challenges that have led to unified industrial action in universities across the country, where can we as individual academics start, or how can we contribute towards this? Well, it is important to note that there is nothing that we are required to do as academics that actually makes any of this less possible. It is simply a case of substituting existing practices with others that make more sense and breed positivity; a shift of expectations and priorities, rather than additions to pre-existing ones. It is easy to agree with many of these challenges, but to then find a variety of reasons for why changes cannot be enacted in the way that they should. We know there are unique differences across institutions, and there will be challenges associated with some spaces that are not found in others. But there cannot be a refusal to even try, or to allow others to try, in learning from good practice from institutions which have actually succeeded in bringing positive changes into fruition.

As is evident from student engagement, hierarchical practices of imposition can fail if it is not passionately supported by everyone in the room, particularly where these cannot be questioned. As academics, we quite rightly expect respect for individual autonomy, a dissolution of micromanagerialism across academia, and non-hierarchical forms of leadership. These are good starting points in ensuring that there is healthy staff retention and morale at all levels, so that this positivity can then be reflected in our relationships with students. The only imposition can be the imposition of consistent care and respect for one another. We are all human beings with aforementioned unique diversity of skills, talents, experiences, cultural sensitivities, all of which form our distinctive intersectional identities. Maintaining an optimum level of student engagement & experience, and successful staff retention, requires celebrating these differences in ways that allow them to shine in our everyday working practices. It is in the interests all within our institution that we offer this kind of diversity in our ranks. This is not always found in other walks of life.

This is what sets us apart, and this is what gives us ‘status’.

Meet the Team: Helen Trinder, Associate Lecturer in Criminology

My Academic Journey

Two weeks ago, I attended a university reunion. My cohort are now in our late 40s or early 50s but it is remarkable how little we had all changed. Being back in the place where we all studied together put me in reflective mood and that (combined with some timely prompting from Paula) inspired me to share my academic journey.

I was one of those annoying kids who did well at school and knew exactly what they wanted to do. As a small child, I wanted to be a nurse but I later developed an aversion to bodily fluids which made that career choice untenable. I briefly flirted with the idea of being an English teacher, but both of my parents were in education and strenuously tried to dissuade me. So, at the age of about 14, I decided that I wanted to be a prison psychologist. I was in a careers lesson at school, and we had a big green plastic box filled with cards on which were written descriptions of different jobs. I announced that I wanted to be a psychiatrist (I think I was just being provocative) but I couldn’t find “psychiatrist” in the box, so I picked the closest one that I could find: “psychologist”. I read the card and it sounded really interesting, so I decided to find out more about psychology. The more I read, the more interesting I found it, and when I looked into the sorts of settings where I could work as a psychologist, prisons called out to me.

I was very lucky to secure a place to read Experimental Psychology at University College, Oxford in 1990. People have an image of ancient universities as being elitist, but what struck me was the huge diversity of people who were there. They were all clever and had studied hard to achieve their places, but beyond that they came from an enormous range of backgrounds – a far greater variety than I had encountered in my Shropshire comprehensive school. Our tutors worked us extremely hard. We had weekly tutorials, either in pairs or one-to-one, in two modules every term and we had to prepare an essay for each tutorial (two essays a week). In tutorials, we read out, discussed and analysed our essays and the reading on which they were based. There were lectures and practical classes on top of that and we had exams at the beginning of each term to make sure that we hadn’t forgotten anything over the vacations! That’s why I’m sometimes not very sympathetic to students who struggle to read one paper in preparation for a seminar!

At the end of my undergraduate studies, I still wanted to work in prisons but I knew very little about them. My degree had given me an excellent grounding in psychology but I knew little about the study of crime. So I applied to do an M.Phil. at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge. This gave me an extra year as a full-time student and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was privileged to be taught by such eminent criminologists as Loraine Gelsthorpe, Alison Liebling and David Farrington. I particularly enjoyed the penology seminars with Nigel West, which I attended just out of interest – I wasn’t taking the assessment in that module! The assessments were all coursework (extended essays and a dissertation) and had to be submitted at the start of each term, so I studied hard in the vacations, and I attended my seminars in term time, but there was also plenty of time for sport and socialising and making the most of my last year as a student!

At that time, HM Prison Service recruited new psychologists once a year through a national assessment centre. I applied in 1994, just after I had submitted my M.Phil. dissertation but I was unsuccessful. I got a job instead at the University of Wales, Swansea, as a research assistant in the Department of Social Policy and Applied Social Studies. I was involved in an evaluation of drug and alcohol treatment centres, funded by the Welsh Office, which employed both quantitative measures and participant observation. When that contract ended, I obtained another contract with Swansea City Council to compile a community profile of a “problem” estate. This required knocking on doors to interview residents, and participant observation in community settings such as the youth club, old people’s bingo sessions and the local pub. It was considered a rather intimidating environment to drop a well-educated 24-year-old English girl into, but I found the residents to be remarkably warm and welcoming and it was a highly rewarding piece of work.

By the time I finished the community profile, I had re-applied to the Prison Service and passed the assessment centre – the interpersonal skills I had developed through my action research had served me well. I had, however, joined the Prison Service at an unfortunate time. There was a recruitment ban in force which meant that although I had passed the psychologist assessment centre, I couldn’t actually secure a job. I was eventually given a temporary contract to collect data at HMP Littlehey for a large-scale research project analysing effective prison regimes.  After 10 months of doing this, the recruitment ban was lifted and I was taken on as a prison psychologist, sharing my time between HMP Littlehey and HMP Wellingborough. The Prison Service used to fund a part-time M.Sc. at Birkbeck University, which all newly recruited psychologists undertook. Obtaining a suitably accredited M.Sc., along with completing a satisfactory period of supervised practice, is an essential requirement of becoming a fully qualified “Chartered” psychologist. In another piece of unfortunate timing, the Birkbeck M.Sc. ceased to run just as I joined the service. At first, there was nothing to take its place. However, other universities soon noticed the gap in the market. I, and others in my prison psychology cohort, were relieved when the University of Leicester set up an M.Sc. in Forensic and Legal Psychology by Distance Learning. The Prison Service agreed to pay my fees and my manager allowed a small amount of study leave when assignments were due. Completing a post-graduate degree while working full-time in a demanding job was hard work and I vowed I would never do it again!

I moved to HMP Woodhill in 1998, completed my M.Sc. in 1999 and became a Chartered Psychologist in 2001. At some point after that, I remember receiving a phone call at work from someone called “@manosdaskalou” at, what was then, University College Northampton! I don’t know where he got my number from, but he wanted someone to talk to his third year Forensic Psychology students about the work that psychologists do in prisons. My parents had not completely succeeded in knocking a desire to teach out of me (in fact I probably inherited my urge to educate from them), and my Dad had taught at Northampton when it was Nene College, so I was keen to fulfil the request. The talk became a regular fixture and, after a few years (by which time I was Head of Psychology at HMP Woodhill), we extended it from a single guest lecture to a series of four, to allow me to cover topics such as risk assessment and offending behaviour interventions in more detail.

My son was born in 2008 and I took 12 months maternity leave from the Prison Service. At the end of that time, I didn’t feel ready to go back, so I negotiated a further 12 months career break. I wasn’t ready to return to the full intensity of managing a team in a high security prison, but I did want to keep my brain active. I asked Manos if there were any opportunities to expand my teaching commitments. The University was in the process of setting up a foundation degree in Offender Management, which was aimed primarily at custodial officers at HMP Rye Hill but was also delivered to a small cohort of full-time students. They were short of lecturers to deliver the modules and my offer to help out was eagerly accepted. The terms of my career break meant that I couldn’t earn money from another employer, but a couple of hours a week teaching suited me very well, so I gave my services for free and taught a module on Professional Practice alongside a lecturer with a background in probation, from another university, called Keith Davies.

After a year of this arrangement, HMP Woodhill were unwilling to have me back part-time, so I resigned from the Prison Service and joined the Parole Board as a part-time psychologist member. This allowed me to work much more flexibly and, with a toddler in the family, it suited me well. It also meant that I could have a proper contract with the University of Northampton and I became an associate lecturer in September 2010. Keith had moved to a different job but I continued to teach Professional Practice on the Offender Management degree. There was also a module in Offender Management on “The Psychology of Crime and Criminal Behaviour”. The person who taught this left after a couple of years and I took it over. Returning to basic psychology and teaching it every week was daunting at first, but I really enjoyed going back to what I had learned as an undergraduate and re-discovering how relevant it was to real-life criminal justice.

The arrangement with HMP Rye Hill had never really taken off and the Offender Management degree only ever attracted small numbers of full-time students, so in 2014 the course closed. Manos was keen, however, to incorporate more psychology into the B.A. Criminology course, so we adapted “The Psychology of Crime and Criminal Behaviour” into a first-year criminology module and I’ve been teaching it ever since! I’ve also taught a module on violence and I’ve covered maternity leave and sickness absence in other modules too. My students will have heard me banging on about forensic psychologists being “scientist-practitioners” and I feel that teaching at the University of Northampton has allowed me to fulfil this role. As a practitioner, I have lots of interesting real-life examples to use to illustrate points to my students, but teaching also keeps me up-to-date with research and theory which I can use to inform my practice.

My academic journey continues to take me to new places. My position on the Parole Board was a public appointment with a fixed tenure that came to an end in September 2020. I decided at that point to start a part-time Ph.D. with the University of Birmingham. I had not wanted to go into research straight from my M.Phil. because I felt that, in order to understand people who committed offences, I really needed some direct experience of working with them, but after 24 years as a practitioner, the time seemed right. I am now 18 months into a 6-year part-time degree. I am exploring the role of empathy deficits in violent and sexual offending. Trying to undertake research (which ideally requires access to prisoners) has not been easy during a pandemic and I have faced a number of obstacles but nothing insurmountable yet.

I am still keen to maintain a scientist-practitioner balance, and I need to pay my university fees and make a contribution to the family income, so in February of last year I started working as a Forensic Psychologist at St Andrew’s hospital. I am primarily based on a medium-secure ward for men with learning disabilities. Forensic mental health is a new area of practice for me and, although I have plenty of transferable skills from my previous roles, I have had to adapt to a different approach to the people we work with and a completely new set of jargon.

Reflecting on my academic journey, it is the people that stand out. I think that the most profound learning has taken place when I have been able to engage with experts who have shared their enthusiasm. In this respect, my undergraduate tutorials and M.Phil. seminars contrast with my distance learning M.Sc., which was a means of obtaining a qualification rather than an immersive learning experience. I hope that, as a practitioner who also teaches, I have been able to share some of my enthusiasm for forensic psychology with my own students. In order to benefit from this, however, students need to take up the opportunity to engage fully with teaching and not just see their university experience as a means to a qualification. Of course, COVID has not helped this, and the university’s penchant for remote learning placed it in a good position to maintain teaching when the pandemic struck. But it is very difficult to engage students when they are just names on a screen. I hope that, as we return to more face-to-face teaching, I can once again inspire my students, not just to pass their exams but to develop a life-long fascination for understanding criminal behaviour and the people that perpetrate it.

Helen Trinder, M.A., M.Phil., M.Sc., C.Psychol.

Forensic Psychologist and Associate Lecturer

Meet the Team: Paul Famosaya, Lecturer in Criminology

Hi all! My name is Dr Paul Famosaya and I have just joined UoN as a Lecturer in criminology. Prior to joining UoN, I have taught as a Lecturer in criminology and policing at the University of Cumbria – where I contributed to the development and running of modules at both Undergraduate and Masters level. In addition, I have taught criminology at Middlesex University, London as an HP Lecturer (during my PhD days). So, over the years really, I have developed and taught a variety of modules around the theories of crime, the crimes of the powerful, global dimensions of crime, policing, new ideas in criminology, crimes & deviance, social exclusion, criminological frameworks etc. I also serve as a reviewer of a few international reputable journals.

In terms of my academic background, I completed my undergraduate degree in Nigeria, 2010 and then went straight on to complete my Masters in Criminology at Middlesex University, London. I then dived straight in to my PhD, which I completed also at Middlesex in 2019 – with my thesis focusing on police experiences, actions and practices.

I came into the world of Criminology simply for my interest in understanding the logic of corruption and the network of greed. I realised that these two components are largely the foundational problems of my home country Nigeria, and many other countries. So, the plight to unravel these dynamics from both institutional and personal level triggered my interest in the discipline. To a large extent, this interest has continued to strengthen my area of specialisation which concentrates largely on the areas of Critical and Theoretical criminology, Police culture, Social harms and Injustice. Criminology is something I’ve really enjoyed doing and while I have taught it for many years, I still consider myself to be a student of Criminology really.

I am currently completing another article on pandemics and criminology – so it’ll be cool to chat with colleagues looking at similar area(s). Looking forward to meeting everyone soon!

Meet the Team: Tré Ventour, Associate Lecturer in Criminology

Photo Credit: Kelly Cooper Photography

Hello everyone. My name is Tré and I will be one of the student success mentors [SSMs] starting from December 2021. Some of the now third-year criminology students reading this may remember me from when I attended some sessions within my role as a student union sabbatical officer (2019-2020) in their first year. However, as an SSM, I have previously been in some of the same situations many students have as I was also a student at the university (2016-2019).

The BTEC / A-Level-to-University pipeline can be challenging, but not impossible to navigate while the transition from school to university, is a social and cultural change that takes getting used to. Particularly the codes of acting and being so ingrained in university learning and working cultures.

I did my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at Northampton. But I did my postgraduate degree in a completely different area of study — reading Race, Education, and Decolonial Thought within Leeds Beckett’s Centre for Race, Education, and Decoloniality. My academic interests are in race and social inequalities (but I previously used creative writing to discuss it), with my undergraduate dissertation being Permission to Speak: On Race, Identity, and Belonging. Furthermore, lots of my experience comes from the many talks I have done on Black history and race (including whiteness), further to the social investments I have in the local Northampton community where I grew up. Most recently, I am co-leading a Windrush project with a charity called NorFAMtoN built off an earlier largely Black community-led response to inequalities exasperated from issue relating to the COVID-19 pandemic (a project that is ongoing).

In 2018, I started using my knowledge on race to help organisations and that started with a theatre company called Now and Then Theatre where I was consultant on their play about Walter Tull. This took place in Buckingham and Northants. I became a student union sabbatical officer for Global Majority students in June 2019 where more questions about race occured. Leaving that role in July 2020, the overlap with the murder of George Floyd also saw more questions. And though I had done this sort of work prior to that summer, this time saw me and many of my colleagues being asked to do things where I have been freelancing as a race and Black history educator more consistently since September 2020.

Yet, I fell into criminology (as a sabbatical officer) when criminology programme leads @manosdaskalou and @paulaabowles contacted me to discuss my SU role, possibly in the July or August 2019. Unknown to me then, lots of the work I had done in the community including the types of poetry events I did (could be considered criminological). Over my year in the student union, I did think a lot about what my life would have been like had I done a creative writing-criminology joint honours degree rather than single honours creative writing. Anyhow, enough of whatifs. My life with the team since meeting Paula and Manos has not been the same, as they and Stephanie (@svr2727) convinced to go for my MA.

One of the poetry events I hosted during the lockdowns, exploring whiteness / white supremacy

I didn’t study criminology in a formal capacity, but in terms of understanding crime — race and thus whiteness certainly have roles (which is my area). Criminology via many conversations with the team, pertinently interacting with Paula’s module on violence (and engaging with these students when I was sabb), showed me a context for my institutional experiences at university and elsewhere. Criminology simply added more layers to my understandings of the world. As an artist, I find criminology to be multidisciplinary informing some of my poetry as what happened when I went to Onley Prison in February 2020 showing criminology’s relevance in life beyond theory (as valuable as theory is).

As an artist, I try to approach as much as possible with an open-mind. Yet, as an academic as well, I also try my best to think how the issues we teach also have a human cost. For example, we must not only talk about violence as a purely academic matter. The decisions we make can have consequences. So, here then in your study time, I encourage you to think about the human cost of research (as there is both good and bad). Remember, there is no such thing as ‘being objective’ (there’s always a perspective or an agenda … see what I did there?). Debate with your lecturers, but more importantly debate with each other.

As an SSM, my role is about helping all students. Those that are just starting and also students that have been here for a while. I am here to help students that study at Northampton, including those who came straight from school all the way to those that came to university after a working career before going back to study. However, as an associate lecturer, I’m here specifically for criminology students.

My name is Tré and will be back at the university on a part-time basis starting from December 2021, and I look forward to meeting you all very soon! 😀


More on me here – https://linktr.ee/treventoured

Meet the Team: Stephanie Richards, Associate Lecturer in Criminology

A Warm Welcome

Hello all! I would like to introduce myself. My name is Stephanie Richards and I am your Student Success Mentor (SSM). Some of the criminology and criminal justice students would have already had the opportunity to meet me, as I was their Student Success Mentor previously. So, it will be great to touch base with you all and it would also be great for the new cohorts to say hi when you see me on campus.

It is that time of the year when we see new students and our existing students getting ready to tackle the trials of higher education. Being a SSM I am fully aware of the challenges that you will face, and I am here to support you throughout your time at UON. As a previous student I can testify that studying at university is incredibly challenging. The leap from school/ college can be daunting at first. A new building that seems like a maze or the idea of being  surrounded by strangers that you probably think you have nothing in common with can be enough to encourage you to run for the hills….stepping into a workshop for the first time can give you a stomach flip, but once you take that first seat in class you will come to realise it does get easier.

Upon reflection of my experience as a new undergraduate student I would have to be honest and express the difficulties that I suffered adjusting to my new way of life. I could  not keep my head above the masses of reading, and when I did manage to get some of the seminar prep completed, most of the time I struggled with the new questions and concepts that were posed to me. This will be the experience of most, if not all the new students starting out on their university education. This is part of the complex journey of academia. My advice would be to pace yourself, time management is key, if you struggle to understand the work that has been set, ask for clarity and develop positive relationships with your peers and the staff at UON…………..being part of a strong community will get you through a lot!

My role is not just about assisting the new students that have started their university journey, I am also here to help UONs existing students. Getting back into the swing of studying can be daunting after the summer break. Adjusting to face-to-face education can be an overwhelming process but one that should be embraced. We will all miss our pyjama bottoms and slippers but being back on campus and getting some normality back in your day is worth the sacrifice.  

The team of SSM’s are here to support you throughout your journey so please get in touch if you require our assistance. We never want you to feel alone in this journey and we want to assist you the best ways we can. We want you to progress and meet your full learning potential, and to get the most out of your university experience.

Meet the Team: Francine Bitalo, Associate Lecturer in Criminology

Hi everyone! My name is Francine Bitalo and I will be your new Student Success Mentor for this year. I am looking forward to meeting and assisting you all in your academic journey. Feel free to contact me for any support.

Being a graduate from the University of Northampton I can relate to you all, I know how challenging student life can be especially when dealing with other external factors. You may go through stages where you doubt your creativity, abilities and maybe even doubt whether the student life is for you. When I look back at when I was a student, I definitely regret not contacting the Student Success Mentors that were available to me or simply utilising more of the university’s support system. It is important for you seek support people like myself are here to help and recommend you to the right people.

Besides everything, Criminology is such an interesting course to study if you are anything like me by the end of it all you won’t view the world the same. Many of you have probably already formed your views on life especially when it comes to understanding crime. Well by the end of it all your ways of viewing the world will enhance and become more complex, theoretical and constructive. The advice I give you all is to enjoy the journey, be open minded and most importantly prepare for exciting debates and conversations.

Look forward to meeting you all.

A smorgasbord of thought (AKA a head full of magic)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesfred/2823810363https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesfred/2823810363

Its been a few weeks since I’ve written a blog and whilst there are plenty of topics to pick from, I never quite got my head round writing about anything in depth. I’ve thought about a lot, I never stop thinking about a lot, some it meaningful and some of it not. I like to think that some of the stuff is quite profound but that’s just in my imagination, I think. Anyway, rather than trying to put together some deep and meaningful narrative about the state of the world I thought I’d provide a few highlights.

When I read Jes’ blog the other week about graffiti, I couldn’t help thinking that we do far too much to try to justify and somehow nullify the effects of criminality. For all our theorising and empathising as criminologists, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that crime results in victims and being a victim of crime is at best an unpleasant experience.  So, I have to disagree with Jes on one point, grafitti is not art, its criminal damage, vandalism if you like. Very rarely have I ever gazed upon a graffiti covered bridge, wall, shop front, shutter, railway station siding or railway carriage and thought to myself, wow that’s nice. Let’s call it what it is.

I think it was the same week that I read a post on ‘LinkedIn’ about the silence surrounding the murder of Julia James, a 53-year-old Police Community Support Officer.  The silence the author of the post was referring to was the contrast between the public response to Julia James’ death and that of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive.  No vigil, no public outrage, no ‘claim the streets back’.  I wondered what dictates the public response to such horrific events.  Is it age, occupation, circumstance or just timing?

I watched the news this week somewhat bemused by the response of some industry chiefs and business owners.  The airline industry is less than pleased with the government’s approach to relaxing of restrictions around travel and some business owners are apoplectic about the fact that the removal of restrictions might be delayed. It might be a bit simplistic to state this, but it seems that they value business more than lives.

As for those that went on holiday abroad, thinking they wouldn’t need to quarantine when they came back only to find that the rules changed, and they now have to.  More fool you, maybe I’ve missed a trick here, but I don’t think the Covid virus and its mutations will wait for you to enjoy the rest of your holiday before spreading a little more. Don’t complain about quarantine nor the cost of testing, you put yourself in that position, now take some responsibility and suck it up instead of blaming someone else.

In a conversation, a friend of mine told me ‘the problem is people don’t like being told what to do’. This was said in the context of Covid and our discussion about the idiots that think any rules or guidance just doesn’t apply to them. The comment did however make me think about a paper I read some time ago by Storch (1975).  When the new police were introduced into this country in 1829, there were few who looked upon them favourably.  One of the main issues was simply that the populace did not like being restricted in their ‘immoral or illegal’ pastimes. We can have a debate about who makes the rules but it seems to me the most pressing point is that little has changed. Take off the rose-tinted glasses, there never was a golden era of policing, the police have never been liked and never will be.  I wonder how the population would act if there were no police though?

I’m a little weary now, all of this thinking and writing has worn me out. Time for a lie down in a darkened room.

My Criminology Journey: Haley

The start of my criminology journey is not very exciting. I am not fully sure of how or why I ended up studying the subject. I was advised to study hairdressing at school as my predicted grades were not good enough for university, but the idea of trusting myself with a pair of scissors was very unnerving. I had a dilemma at college as I was unable to decide whether I wanted to study healthcare or construction – two courses which bore no similarity. In the end I give up trying to make decisions and studied A Levels because that was what my friends were doing.

University may as well have been on Mars at this point, as it was completely mysterious and unknown to me. Whilst at college, I was asked by my tutor to go to an open day at Oxford University. I saw this as an opportunity to unmask this university ‘thing’ for what it really was, so I agreed to go. I felt completely out of place throughout the day and found myself gobsmacked by the sheer privilege of the place, the culture and the students etc. At the same time, I was fascinated by the available courses, so I decided to continue my studies into higher education.    

My first attempt at university did not go as well as I had intended it to. I had other issues to contend with at the time, so I dropped out after two weeks. However, in 2010 I enrolled at the UoN and never really left. I had a great time studying criminology at UoN as I thought that my course was very interesting and the teaching staff (aka @paulaabowles and @manosdaskalou) were spectacular.  

I did not realise this it at the time but I was well prepared for critical criminological discussions because I came from a background where people would be demonized for a whole host of social problems – it was clear to me at the time that this was unfair. Whilst enjoying the course content I did have to make a considered effort to improve on my writing skills, but it was worth the effort as this improvement worked wonders on my grades. As an undergraduate, I used my overdraft and savings from working part-time jobs to go travelling at the end of each academic year, this was beneficial for helping me to understand criminological issues outside of the UK.      

In 2015 I began teaching as an associate lecturer at UoN and I really enjoyed it. I also completed an MA degree in Social Research. To fast-forward to today, I now work as a lecturer in criminology – and this really is, beyond my wildest dreams!

Studying is not always a smooth ride for some, but if you work hard, you never know where you might end up.

Nothing is black and white: the intransigence of fools

“Burglar!” by Maydela is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

One thing we criminologists know is that it is impossible to prevent crime. Many a great criminologist has tried to theorise why crime occurs (my shelves are full of their books) and whilst almost all have made valuable contributions to our understanding of crime, it is an unfortunate fact that crime continues. But then crime itself is difficult to define and has its basis in time, power, opportunity and social discourses. What is criminal today will not be criminal tomorrow and what is important today will lose its importance tomorrow, in favour of some new or maybe, old, manifestation of that elusive concept we call crime. Perhaps we should we grateful, for in the industry of crime lies mass employment. From criminologists to those that attempt to stem the tide of crime, those that deal with its aftermath and those that report on it or write about it (real or fictional), there is money to be made. If we stopped crime, we would all be out of a job.

Most, if not all of us have at some stage in our lives committed some sort of crime. Most crimes will fortunately be almost inconsequential, maybe a flouting of a law such as driving a car over the speed limit. Other crimes will be more serious and whilst some criminals will be brought to book most are not. The inconsequential crime of driving over the speed limit, albeit perhaps due to a lapse of concentration, can have dire consequences. There is clear evidence that the survival rates of pedestrians struck by cars has a direct correlation with speed. So the inconsequential becomes the consequential, the ephemerality of crime, the reality.

When we think of crime, we often have little concept of its reality. We apply labels and our own rules to that we know and find acceptable. Speeding is not criminal, well not generally, unless it’s a boy racer. Drink driving is a no-no, but we might take it to the alcohol limit when having a drink. Drugs (the criminalised type) are ok, well some are and some aren’t, it all depends on your viewpoint. Drugs (the prescription type) are ok, even if they impair our ability to drive.  Alcohol, well that’s absolutely ok, even if the abuse of it leads to more deaths than drugs and the consequences of that misuse has a really significant impact on the NHS.  Tax evasion, illegal if you get caught, ok if you don’t. A bit like fraud really, ok if you can get away with it but then maybe not, if the victim is a little old lady or me.  Assault, well it depends on the seriousness and the situation and probably the victim.  Robbery, not good to go into an off licence with a gun and threaten the shopkeeper, bullying if you take lunch money off the lad outside the school gates.

Criminals don’t walk around with a label that says ‘criminal’ and even if they did, there would have to be a method of bestowing the label in an instance.  Nonsense of course, only a fool would suggest such a thing.  What about the people that committed a crime but have changed their ways I hear my colleagues ask? What about those that haven’t, or have and then relapse, I reply.

Nothing is black and white; the concept of crime is elusive, as are criminals (both by concept and nature). And yet we happily castigate those that attempt to uphold the law on our behalf and in doing so view crime and criminals as clear concepts. Each has a clear label, each is clearly identifiable, so how can they get it so wrong so many times.  Whilst criticising those that attempt, and let’s be quite honest, fail most of the time to stem this tide of crime, perhaps we might also think about the impossibility of the job in hand.  That’s not to say that a lot of the criticisms are not justified, nor that things should not change, but if we only examine all that is wrong, we lose sight of reality and only an intransigent fool would continue an argument that sees the problems and solutions as simply black and white.

Ask the expert, if you can find one

It was around four years ago I discovered the title of ‘Doctor’ extended beyond medical staff. I’m not sure many people outside of the academic world fully understand or have any reason to know the order in which post nominal letters are awarded or titles are given. Gaining the title of ‘doctor’ at the very beginning of any academic journey, seems so distantly part of any future plan, its barely imaginable. Some career paths seem wildly ambitious. Wanting to be an ‘expert’ in your field for the humble student, feels much like aspiring to become an astronaut midway through a physics degree.

Once you enter the world of academia, the titles people hold seem to determine an awful lot of their credibility. It’s rare to find a university lecturer who isn’t working towards doctoral qualification, most already have one. The papers, books and research journals are filled with the knowledge of individuals who once were nothing more than students. I often wonder though, at what point someone becomes an expert? At what point, (if ever) do the most academically qualified individuals refer to themselves as experts within a narrow area of their field.

The government often talks about relying on ‘expert’ evidence. Watching the experts stand beside the PM discussing the current pandemic, they appear uneasy, particularly when questions are raised about a different expert having a contradicting opinion. One thing I feel quite sure of is that experts seem to rarely agree. As Bertrand Russell (1927/42) states, “even when all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken” . Maybe that’s because it’s questionable if anyone can ever truly know everything on a given subject area.

The scientific committee seems to be buzzing with accusations that the experts are not quite what they seem. The ‘data scientists’ advising government and sitting on SAGE are not all from a background which comfortably implies they are qualified to discuss virology or immunology. In the background lingers the fact with such a new virus, with so little known about it, expert knowledge in a narrow sense, is undoubtedly in its infancy and will probably require some degree of hindsight later on.

In the past week one of the UK’s leading experts has resigned from his job after breaking his own guidance. Meanwhile the public watched Matt Hancock ‘snap’ at an opposition MP in parliament. A woman who despite being no more of an ‘expert’ than himself, at least has experience as a qualified A&E doctor to base her opinions and views on. It seems last week’s experts and heroes are this week’s victims in the ongoing witch-hunt for someone to blame.

I’ve started to wonder if labelling someone an ‘expert’ is something other people do to install confidence that a piece of research being relied upon is credible, rather than the experts referring to themselves that way. There’s almost an assumption of arrogance for anyone who dares to protest that their knowledge should be recognised with a title, outside of the academic world anyway. Maybe people simply don’t understand what it took to reach that level of knowledge in the first place.

I’ve looked a lot at ‘labelling’ within the criminological context and it seems to me the labels that are attached to us, almost always seem to come from someone else. In an age of self-proclaimed ‘internet experts’ the real experts, it seems are hard to find.

Reference

Russell, Bertrand (1927/1942) cited in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: A Fresh Look at Empiricism, 1927-42, edited by by John Slater and Assisted by Peter Köllner, (London: Routledge)

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