Prize-Winning Research Exposes the Lasting Harms of Covert Policing

Dr Bethan Loftus and Professor Martina Feilzer from Bangor University and Professor Benjamin Goold from the University of British Columbia have won the 'Best Article' prize for their paper, 'Being Watched: The Aftermath of Covert Policing', published in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice (2024). 

The article identified new areas for theoretical and methodological engagement, with a view to better understanding the harms that covert and undercover policing operations can generate. 

The authors argued that attending to the inherent and inescapable intimacy of covert policing offers a much-needed opportunity to explore the reverberating effects of a unique state practice that can radically alter the lives of individual surveillance subjects, and which tests conventional understandings of the legitimacy and limits of force, coercion, and police power. 

The prize is awarded to the article published each year that has, in the opinion of the editors, made the most original contribution to knowledge in the field of crime and justice. 

On winning the prize, Bethan stated, "This is one of the most prestigious and major international journals in our discipline and we are very proud that our article has been recognised in this way". 

To read the award-winning article, see: Being Watched: The Aftermath of Covert Policing.