Dr Susan Watson
Lecturer in Criminal Justice and Social Policy

Profile

Biography

Dr Susan Watson has been a Lecturer in Criminal Justice and Social Policy in the School for Business and Society at the University of York since September 2022. She has a BSc (First Class Honours) in Social Policy and Administration and an MSc in Criminal Justice Policy from the LSE; and an  MA in Social Research and a PhD in Social Policy from the University of York.  Her scholarship is concentrated on technology facilitated gendered violence, innovative qualitative research methods; and the role of technology in perpetrating structural gendered harms. 

Susan is also a member of the Executive Board of the British Society of Criminology; a member of the Social Policy Association; and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Before embarking upon an academic career, Susan worked as a political campaigner for the Labour Party during its period in government between 1997 – 2005. She has also worked on criminal justice research and policy development, including time on the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee; and a large charitable foundation.

Susan is proud to be an Alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science; and the University of York.

Departmental roles

Principal Investigator, Mapping the incidence and impact of digitally-enabled coercive control in York and North Yorkshire - research project

University roles

Teaching for 2026/27

Undergraduate

Module Lead, Crime and Justice in the Online Space (Year 3)

Module Lead, Social Harm and Injustice (Year 1)

Lecturer and Module Lead, Victimology and Victimisation (Year 2)

Seminar Lead, Crime and the Life Course (Year 2)

Postgraduate

Lecturer, Investigating Contemporary Policy Problems (MA)

Research

Overview

Susan is currently Principal Investigator for the digitally-enabled coercive control research project, working in partnership with North Yorkshire Police and funded by The Yorkshire Policing Academic Centre of Excellence (TYP-ACE).

Susan is currently open to applications from individuals wishing to undertake doctoral research in the broad areas of gendered violence; crime and justice in the online space; and research using feminist intersectional qualitative methodologies.

Publications

Full publications list

Books

Watson, S. (2026). The Online Violence Experienced by Women Working in the Public Sphere. In: Trickett, L., Zempi, I., Smith, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Violence Against Women and Girls. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84546-8_2-1

Vipond, R. and Watson, S. (2026) 'Conducting criminal justice policy analysis' in Penfold-Mounce, R. & Falcetta, S. (eds.) Innovative Qualitative Methods for Criminology: An Introduction to Dissertation Research. Milton Park: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003610700

Watson, S. (2025).  Gendered online abuse against women in public life: more than just words. Leeds. Emerald Publishing

Journal Articles

Watson, S. (2024) ‘Taking on the World: Tackling Gender-Based Violence in the Online Space’, in M. Duggan et al. (eds) Papers from the British Criminology Conference 2023. Sustaining Futures: Remaking Criminology in an age of Global Injustice, British Society of Criminology, pp. 8–23.

Watson, S. (2023). 'Online abuse of women: an interdisciplinary scoping review of the literature', Feminist Media Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2023.2181136

Watson, S. (2022). Investigating the role of social media abuse in gender-based violence: The experiences of women police officers. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958221087487

Conversation Articles and other media

Watson, S. (2026). "Online abuse is a daily reality for women in public life", The Guardian Newspaper, 12 April. 

Watson, S. (2025). Attacks on Jess Phillips show how online abuse of women is intended to keep them out of the public square.  The Conversation. 10 January.

Watson, S. (2023). ‘You rarely see abuse directed at men’: a look at the sexist abuse women police officers face online, The Conversation, 9 March.

Watson, S. (2022). 'Elon Musk's Twitter Blue gives verification for a fee - this could make Twitter even less safe for women', The Conversation, 8 November.

Watson, S. (2019). ‘Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter’ The Conversation, 6 November.