Adam Crawford

Profile

Biography

Adam Crawford
BA Law & Sociology (Warwick), MPhil Criminology (Cambridge), PhD (Leeds), FAcSS

Chair in Policing and Social Justice, and Deputy Associate Dean for Research (Impact and Knowledge Exchange) in the Faculty of Social Sciences

I joined York Law School in August 2022. Prior to this I worked for 30 years at the University of Leeds where I remain employed 25% of my time as Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Law. At Leeds, I was the Director of the Leeds Social Sciences Institute (2015-21), Pro-Dean for Research & Innovation (2012-15) in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (2005-2011) and Director of Research in the School of Law (2001-204). I was the Leeds lead for the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (2016-21) and lead investigator on the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2015-22). I was the founding Director of the N8 Policing Research Partnership (2013-2020), a collaboration between the eight research-intensive universities in the north of England (including York) and 12 northern police forces and partners. I started my academic career as a Research Fellow at Middlesex University (1987-1988) and as Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire (1988-1992).

I am co-Director of the ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre, a £10 million investment which commenced in May 2022 and is hosted by the Universities of York and Leeds. I serve as a member of the new Police Scientific Advisory Council, which provides independent advice to the National Police Chiefs’ Council in the UK on science, technology, analysis and research matters relevant to policing policy and operations. I was a Law sub-panel member and Interdisciplinary Advisor for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 and before that was on the Law Sub-panel for REF 2014. I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and an Honorary Lifetime member of the British Society of Criminology. In 2018, I was Distinguished Professorial Visiting Fellow at UNSW and Visiting Professor at Griffith University and the University of Buenos Aires.

Research

Overview

My research focus has been on policing, urban security, crime prevention, anti-social behaviour, victims of crime, restorative justice and the regulation of public spaces, working closely with a range of external partners.

More recently, my research has focused on both building the evidence base through mechanisms of co-production and translating research knowledge to effect change in frontline policing and community safety partnerships.

I have successfully managed/completed high profile studies, securing over £22 million in external funding, mostly as Principal Investigator. My research has been funded by the ESRC, AHRC, the Nuffield Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, the British Council, the Higher Education Funding Council, the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Office and the European Commission.

I am co-Director of the new ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre, which commenced in May 2022, with £10 million from the ESRC to advance a programme of interdisciplinary research with a team of 26 Co-Is and supported by match funding of over £1 million from 38 regional, national and international project partners. In 2013, I established and led the N8 Policing Research Partnership (N8 PRP) and was PI on the £7.4 million HEFCE/OfS Catalyst Grant supporting a 5 year programme of research co-production and knowledge exchange (2015-2020).

I am currently part of a major European consortium working on the IcARUS project ‘Innovative Approaches to Urban Security’, a EU Horizon 2020 research programme coordinated by the European Forum for Urban Security (2020-24). In relation to this, I lead a major review of the urban security knowledge base which has now been published on the consortium website, see here.

Publications

Selected publications

Crawford, A., (2023) ‘Reflections on Developments in Urban Security across Europe over the last 30 Years: Trends and Enduring Tensions’, Italian Review of Criminology, 17(3): 168-179.
Crawford, A., Donkin, S. and Weirich, C.A., (2023) ‘Crime Prevention as Urban Security’, in A. Liebling, S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) Oxford Handbook of Criminology (7th Edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 585-606.
Crawford, A. (2020) ‘Societal Impact as “Rituals of Verification” or the Co-production of Knowledge?’, British Journal of Criminology, 60(3): 493-518.
Crawford, A. (2020) ‘Effecting Change in Policing Through Police/Academic Partnerships’, in N. Fielding, et al. (eds) Critical Reflections on Evidence-Based Policing, Routledge, 175-197.
Barker, A., Crawford, A., Booth, N. & Churchill, D. (2020) ‘Park Futures’, Urban Studies, 57(12), 2456–2472.
Shapland, J., Burn, D., Crawford, A. & Gray, E. (2020) ‘From Victimisation to Restorative Justice: Developing the Offer of Restorative Justice’, International Journal of Restorative Justice, 3, 194-214.
Barker, A., Crawford, A., Booth, N. & Churchill, D. (2019) ‘Everyday Encounters with Difference in Urban Parks’, International Journal of Law in Context, 15, 495–514.
Churchill, D., Crawford, A. & Barker, A. (2018) ‘Thinking Forward through the Past: Prospecting for Urban Order in (Victorian) Public Parks’, Theoretical Criminology, 22(4): 523-544.
Crawford, A. (2018) ‘Temporalities in Security: Long-Term Sustainability, the Everyday and the Emergent in the Anthropocene’, in C. Holley & C. Shearing (eds) Criminology and the Anthropocene, Routledge, 153-80.

External activities

Memberships

Member of the Police Scientific Advisory Council and Non-Executive Director (NED) to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) (2022-)
Sub-panel Member and Interdisciplinary Advisor for Law (UoA 18) for REF 2021
Member of the Academy of Social Sciences’ Nominations Committee and Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
Honorary Lifetime Member of the British Society of Criminology

Editorial duties

Co-editor of the ‘Emerald Studies in Plural Policing’ book series (with Drs Tessa Diphoorn and Adam White)