We are proud to be working alongside 2 leading criminologists helping us to shape and refine our work.
Shadd Maruna
Shadd Maruna is Professor of Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Previously, he has worked at the University of Cambridge, the University of Manchester, and Rutgers University, where he was the Dean of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice (USA). His research focuses on desistance from crime and implications for prisoner reintegration. He is the author or editor of seven books, including, Rehabilitation: Beyond the Risk Paradigm (with Tony Ward), Fifty Key Thinkers in Criminology (with Keith Hayward and Jayne Mooney), most recently, The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (with Alison Liebling and Lesley McAra). His book Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives was named the Outstanding Contribution to Criminology in 2001. He received the inaugural Research Medal from the Howard League for Penal Reform for his research’s impact on real world practice in the criminal justice system.
Rob Ralphs
Dr Rob Ralphs is a Reader in Criminology, Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Applied Social Science (RCASS) and co-convenor of the interdisciplinary Substance Use and Associated Behaviours (SUAB) research centre at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has taught criminology at undergraduate and Masters level since 1997. His teaching ranges from criminological theory, crime and violence, research methods, drug use, drug markets, drug policy and research impact. He also supervises PhD students on research spanning homelessness, mental health and ‘spice’, cognitive enhancers and students, cannabis growers and dealers and masculinity and young male homelessness. In addition to his criminological teaching, he has over 20 years of research experience dating back to 1997, spanning both substance use and drug markets. He is a qualitative researcher, with a diverse research portfolio of ethnographic research that is driven by an ethos of providing a platform for those whose voices are often unheard (young people, drug dealers, gang members, substance users, prisoners, people with lived experience of homelessness, victims of crime). With over a decade of gang focused research experience, he is widely regarded as one of the leading UK gang experts. More recently, he has conducted influential research exploring prison new psychoactive substance (NPS) use and markets and the use of ‘Spice’ amongst homeless and people with street - based lifestyles.