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School of Social Sciences

Social Control, Crime & Criminal Justice

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Research Areas

The research activities are diverse, but focus around a few major themes. Of course there is a degree of overlap between categories, and individual researchers are often involved in more than one core area.


Internationally comparative criminology
Two members of the Centre are concerned with crime and deviance in South Asia.
Preet Nijhar takes a theoretical and historical approach to her consideration of the constructions of crime and deviance in India, focusing for example on imperialist influences on notions of criminal tribes. She also engages with postcolonialist theories in her critical approach to law and order in the sub-continent.
Julia Wardhaugh takes a more ethnographic approach in her studies of rural and urban crime and deviance in India. Living for a time in a village in North India, she attempted to explore notions of conformity and social control within a rural context. For example, informal mechanisms of social control such as panchayats may operate within such contexts. Shifting focus, she also conducted research in India and Nepal, exploring religious and socio-spatial responses to begging in the capital cities of New Delhi and Kathmandu.


Socio-legal and Criminal Justice Studies
A number of members of the Centre both past and present have received legal training and this is an important aspect of our work. One member – Ann McLaren – is a longstanding Justice of the Peace, currently serving in North Wales. Stefan Machura is engaged with the sociology of law, and one of his current projects involves the analysis of the results of a number of empirical studies on how experience with legal institutions and personnel as well as popular legal culture shape trust in the law. This includes the willingness to go to lawyers and courts and to report a crime.
Martina Feilzer has significant research interests in criminal justice, particularly penal policy.


Cultural Criminology
Martina Feilzer has recently been awarded her doctorate on the relationship between the media and public opinion on crime and criminal justice; crime and the media represent an ongoing area of interest for her.
Stefan Machura is concerned with popular culture, including the mass media. One of his particular areas of expertise is the representation of criminal and legal themes within film and television.


Theoretical Criminology
Simon Cottee contributes a theoretical criminological perspective. His areas of specialization include coercion, the sociology of crime and deviance, the sociology of intellectuals, terrorism and religious apostasy.
Preet Nijhar combines postcolonial theory, socio-legal studies and an historical perspective in her research on law’s violence, crime and empire.


Policy-oriented Research
A number of projects conducted by Julia Wardhaugh have served to inform policy and practice in North Wales, such as the project on homelessness in Conwy County, and the study of anti-social behaviour in north-west Wales.