Research activity in the Centre covers the following areas: border control and the criminalisation of migration; criminology and social/political theory; crime and the family; crime, risk and justice; the death penalty; human rights and criminal justice; policing and security; prisons; public attitudes and responses to crime and criminal justice; sentencing, restorative justice and miscarriages of justice; sociology of punishment; and youth justice.
MSc and DPhil students participate fully in the intellectual life of the Centre, attending formal and informal seminars and Research Stream meetings. The DPhil students run their own Criminology discussion group. Many are members of other groups in the wider law faculty, such as the Oxford Human Rights Hub, and many also forge links with bodies beyond the academy, including UK government departments, the Prison Service and the UN.
The Criminology pathway offers studentships across a range of routes.
The 1+3.5 route allows students with little or no substantive training in criminology to be registered for the MSc Criminology and Criminal Justice, before going on to doctoral study.
The +4 route provides for students who have postgraduate qualifications in cognate areas, such as law, to spend a year being trained in core and subject-specific research methods that meet the ESRC 2022 Training Guidelines before commencing work on their doctoral thesis.
The +3.5 route allows students who have completed core training that meets the ESRC 2022 Training Guidelines to undertake doctoral study at Oxford.
Further information about the DPhil in Criminology can be found here.
The Centre has close links with HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Thames Valley Police and many other criminal justice agencies, charities and civil society organisations, which provide students with many opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaborative working. Current and former students have engaged in projects involving working with:
- A local immigration solicitor’s firm providing legal advice to incarcerated men in HMP Huntercombe
- The Death Penalty Project, London
- Thames Valley Police
Centre staff members also engage in a range of knowledge exchange activities, holding seminars with practitioners and working collaboratively to disseminate research.
Destinations for students graduating from the training pathway include: academia, NGOs and other civil society organisations, the legal profession; government. Recent graduates have moved into lectureships at major UK and overseas universities and research positions at civil society organisations
