About Us
The Criminal Justice Collective is an interdisciplinary research collective that provides an opportunity for collaborative research in all areas of the criminal justice system, including but not limited to policing, miscarriages of justice, prisons, law of evidence and access to justice.
Some of the research is generated through the work of the Innocence Project London (IPL) which is a pro bono organisation that reviews and investigates cases of convicted individuals who have maintained their innocence but have exhausted the criminal appeals process.
Bringing together academics from law and criminology, the CJC provides a collaborative research environment in which the members can not only learn from each other, but also from external organisations.
Research
Knowledge Exchange projects
Dr Louise Hewitt received HEIF funding to undertake a knowledge exchange study with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to examine the identification and recording of disability hate crime (DHC). This project will examine crime reports that have been flagged as DHC, to determine whether they have been recorded effectively, in addition to reports flagged using vulnerable adult or mental health which will show whether some officers may acknowledge a victim has been in a vulnerable situation but may not recognise it as hate crime. These reports will be looked at across six boroughs for the period of 12 months between 1 January to 31 December 2020.
Dr Louise Hewitt is working with student volunteers on the Innocence Project London (IPL) to capture a personal account of how innocence work enhances student outcomes and employability skills. Using the diamond ranking method, students will reflect on their time on the IPL linking their learning to an aspect of their identity. These autobiographical reflections will be unique to the individual. They will be published in a book which will be given to each student and can be used by the IPL and the University of Greenwich to demonstrate the academic and employability of this type of clinical legal education. This will also promote the unique experience offered at the UoG for prospective students in forthcoming years.
Dr Louise Hewitt is carrying out research with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)to advance an understanding of the nature of applications (based on convictions for murder under joint enterprise) to the CCRC following the decision of the Supreme Court in R v Jogee. This will inform the CCRC, legal practitioners and academics as to how applicants are using the corrected law derived from the decision in Jogee, in particular arguments that overcome “substantial injustice”. The research will:
1. review applications submitted to the CCRC up until 31 December 2019 (including the 104 applications it had received at the time Jogee was before the Supreme Court) from individuals convicted of murder that were prosecuted under the principle of joint enterprise.
2. identify points of commonality in the applications.
3. construct a statistical portrait of applicants, focusing on key demographic characteristics
Dr Camille Stengel is a partner on a project researching the risks of domestic violence for women in London during the coronavirus pandemic. Led by the research consultancy Justice Studios in partnership with the domestic violence charity Solace Women’s Aid, the project seeks to understand the negative social impacts from confining at-risk groups to their homes during the lockdown in the UK and specifically in London. A video summary of the research and link to the full report can be found here. Human Rights Joint Committee call for evidence (a copy of the response is available here).
Dr Camille Stengel and Dr Giulia Zampini conducted a process evaluation of student experience of the Inside Out Prison Exchange Programme, the first of its kind in the UK. Known as Inside Out, this unique programme involves 15 undergraduate students learning alongside 15 incarcerated students in a prison setting. The project involved two prison-university partnerships: The University of Greenwich and HMP Downview, and the University of Kent and HMP Swaleside. The Greenwich evaluation at Swaleside is funded by the Peter Harris Trust. Kent simultaneously conducted an evaluation of Inside Out at Downview with funding from the University of Kent Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty Research Fund. A research briefing about the evaluation is available to view here. More information about the Inside Out Prison Exchange Programme can be found here, including a podcast where University of Greenwich students discuss their experiences of Inside Out with Dr Stengel and Dr Zampini.
Dr Melissa Pepper’s research interests focus on the citizen in policing, in particular the role that volunteers play in the delivery of policing and broader criminal justice services. Melissa’s PhD, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), explored the motivations, contributions, and experiences of Police Support Volunteers in a large urban constabulary in England. Prior to joining Greenwich, Melissa worked in government social research for 18 years, first in the Home Office, then the London Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. Melissa has contributed to and led evaluation, research, and analysis across a range of crime and justice policy areas including domestic and sexual violence, substance misuse, stop and search, and community-police engagement.
Dr Madeline Petrillo’s research focuses on the experiences of women in the justice system. Her doctoral research explored women’s experiences of attempting to leave crime behind after prison. This was a longitudinal, qualitative study examining desistance from gender-responsive, trauma-informed perspective. Integrating this research with professional knowledge gained as a Probation Officer, Madeline has developed a trauma-informed framework for supporting women's desistance (due for publication in January 2022).
Madeline’s current research focuses on trauma-informed practice and interventions in prisons and probation. In 2018, Madeline led the first UK evaluation of the trauma-informed intervention Healing Trauma. This evaluation has been used to support calls for a fuller evaluation of trauma-informed practice and has contributed to the accreditation of the Healing Trauma intervention. Madeline is also currently leading research with the charity One Small Thing on their Hope Street project. Hope Street wil be the first fully trauma-informed rehabitation centre for women. It is intended that there will be a national network of Hope Street centres offering an alternative to custody for women. The research project is has two main strands. The first is to to map the process of designing and building a trauma-informed building (in association with colleagues in the Dept of Architecture) in order to produce a architectural typology for the design of such centres. The second is an evaluation of Hope Street as a response to women's offending.
Madeline was recently commissioned by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation to undertake research into working with trauma in adult probation. With Dr Alexandria Bradley at Leeds Beckett University, she is exploring the extent to which trauma-informed practice is being implemented in probation practice, identifying facilitators and obstacles to embedding trauma-informed approaches, and case study examples of good practice in trauma-informed working.
Dr Elaine Williams is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Greenwich and her research focuses on the policing and criminalisation of young people, particularly around issues such as ‘knife crime’, ‘gun crime’ and ‘gangs’. Elaine’s work seeks to apply theoretical frameworks in practical ways and she actively collaborates with charities and organisation in south London to bring about policy reform and advise on violence reduction strategies. The key themes of Elaine’s research are neoliberal social policy, policing, racialisation and social justice. Her work with the Criminal Justice Collective seeks to extent collaborative work in these areas - with both academics and external organisations and communities.
Our Members
Dr Louise Hewitt | Lecturer in Law, University of Greenwich | ||
Dr Melissa Pepper | Lecturer in Criminology, University of Greenwich | ||
Dr Camille Stengel | Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Greenwich | ||
Dr Elaine Williams | Lecturer in Criminology, University of Greenwich | ||
Ruth Tweedale | Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Greenwich | ||
Dr Madeline Petrillo | Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Greenwich | ||
Dr Josh Davis | Reader in Applied Psychology, University of Greenwich | ||
Professor Claire McGourley | Director of External Relations - The School of Social Sciences University of Manchester | ||
Dr Richard Wild | Principal Lecturer in Criminology, University of Greenwich | ||
Forthcoming Publications
Dr Louise Hewitt and Angela Laycock, (2019) Disabled Witness Project: Promoting Access to Justice for Disabled Witnesses of Disability Hate Crime. Project Report. University of Greenwich.
Dr Louise Hewitt, Policing Disability Hate Crime: Why it Needs to Change, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies forthcoming.
Dr Louise Hewitt, Still Standing: Innocence work in England and Wales, The Wrongful Conviction Law Review forthcoming Autumn 2021
Pepper, M. (2020) ‘Once I Joined my Motivations Changed’: Exploring the Initial and Continuing Motivations of Police Support Volunteers in an English Constabulary’, currently under review.
Pepper, M. Bullock, K. and McCarthy, D. (2020) ‘Exploring the role and contribution of police support volunteers in an English constabulary’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paaa005
Callender, M., Pepper, M., Cahalin, K. and Britton, I. (2019) ‘Exploring the police support volunteer experience: Findings from a national survey’, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 29 (4) pp. 392-406. (2019 impact factor 1.655)
Pepper, M. and Silvestri, M. (2017) ‘”It’s like another family innit”: Building police–youth relations through the Metropolitan Police Service volunteer police cadet programme’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 11 (1) pp. 1-13.
MOPAC evaluation reports
Pepper, M., Keeble, C., and Wunsch, D. (July 2019) The London sexual violence triage pilot: Interim report. London: MOPAC.
Pepper, M., Keeble, C., and Wunsch, D. (July 2019) Drive domestic abuse project: An interim evaluation of the Croydon Site. London: MOPAC.
Pepper, M. and McKinnon, H. (May 2017) Harmful practices pilot: Final evaluation report. London: MOPAC.
Pepper, M. and Dawson, P. (February 2016) Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement: A process review of the proof of concept pilot. London: MOPAC.
Other publications
Pepper, M. (2020) ‘Book review - Volunteer police, choosing to serve: exploring, comparing, and assessing volunteer policing in the United States and the United Kingdom by Ross Wolf and Carol Borland Jones’, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 30 (7) pp. 870-872. (2019 impact factor 1.655)
Pepper, M. (Spring 2020) ‘An academic’s view on the barriers to reporting crime’, Connections Magazine, London: CrimeStoppers https://crimestoppers-uk.org/getmedia/3c6fd6a3-6d0e-4695-aec5-84f8302ad209/Connections-Magazine-2020-Final_2.pdf
Pepper, M. (May 2020) Report on the launch event of the International Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector Research Network (CRIMVOL) virtual working paper series. Nottingham: CRIMVOL https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/prisons-health-and-societies/documents/events/launch-event-crimvol.pdf
Pepper, M. (November 2018) ‘Police support volunteers: Unrecognised and under the radar?’ Blog for CRIMVOL: The International Criminal Justice Voluntary Network
Pepper, M. and McAleese, S. (November 2017) CRIMVOL: The International Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector Research Network report on theAmerican Society of Criminology 2017 Philadelphia. Nottingham: CRIMVOL
Pepper, M. (6 June 2016) ‘Distant relatives or part of the family? Exploring the evidence on police volunteers’ Blog for Policing Insight https://policinginsight.com/features/opinion/distant-relatives-part-family-exploring-evidence-police-volunteers/