Phil Scraton

Phil Scraton

"On completion of his undergraduate studies at the University of Liverpool Professor Scraton was a founder member of the Liverpool Traveller's Free School and the Gypsy and Traveller Education Council. His research Masters thesis, 'Images of Deviance and the Politics of Assimilation', examined the consequences of institutionalised racism on the Irish Travelling community in Liverpool. His doctoral thesis, 'Unreasonable Force: Class, Marginality and the Political Autonomy of the Police', focused on the use and abuse of police powers in the context of the inner-city uprisings of the early 1980s and the 1984-5 coal dispute. Both theses reflected a commitment to in-depth qualitative research. This work extended into researching deaths in controversial circumstances, particularly custody, and the issues arising from their investigation through coroners' inquests and public inquiries. He is co-founder of INQUEST.

"Professor Scraton was a member of The Open University's 'Crime, Justice and Society' Course Team. He left the OU and was appointed Principal Lecturer at Edge Hill University College where, with Dr Kathryn Chadwick, he established the Centre for Studies in Crime and Social Justice. He was Director of the Centre from 1986 to 2003, was promoted to Professor in 1990 and has had visiting professorships in Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney. In 2000 he was awarded a Nuffield grant to set up a disasters' research archive and an ESRC Seminars award to examine the aftermath of disasters and other traumatising events. The seminars focused on official responses, legal processes and media coverage and involved the bereaved and survivors.  He was appointed to a Chair in Criminology in the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the School of Law at Queen's in September 2003. In 2005 he was awarded a Visiting Scholarship to Monash University, Melbourne and in 2009 a Visiting Scholarship to Sydney Law School, University of Sydney.

"Professor Scraton's books include: Causes for Concern, Penguin, 1984 (ed. with Paul Gordon); The State of the Police, Pluto, 1985; In the Arms of the Law: Coroners' Inquests and Deaths in Custody, Pluto, 1987 (with Kathryn Chadwick); Law, Order and the Authoritarian State: Readings in Critical Criminology, Open University Press, 1987 (ed); Prisons Under Protest, Open University Press, 1991 (with Joe Sim and Paula Skidmore); No Last Rights: The Denial of Justice and the Promotion of Myth in the Aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster, Alden Press, 1995 (with Ann Jemphrey and Sheila Coleman); 'Childhood' in 'Crisis' ?, UCL Press, 1997 (ed); Hillsborough: The Truth, Mainstream, 1999 (Revised 2000); Beyond September 11: AnAnthology of Dissent, Pluto, 2002. He is co-author of Children's Rights in Northern Ireland ( Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People) and The Hurt Inside: The Imprisonment of Women and Girls in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, 2005), The Prison Within (Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, 2007) and Childhood in Transition: Experiencing Marginalisation and Conflict in Northern Ireland (Save the Children). He co-edited a Special Issue of the international journal, Social Justice (2006) on deaths in custody and detention, and edited a Special Issue of Current Issues in Criminal Justice (2008) on the criminalisation and punishment of children and young people. His latest books are Power, Conflict and Criminalisation, Routledge (2007), The Violence of Incarceration, Routledge (2008) ed. with Jude McCulloch), Hillsborough: The Truth, Mainstream, (2009, 3rd Edn) and The Incarceration of Women, Palgrave Macmillan, (forthcoming with Linda Moore). He has published widely in academic journals, edited collections, commissioned reports and academic encyclopaedias. He is a member of the Statewatch Editorial Collective, on the Editorial Board of Current Issues in Crime and Justice, on the Steering Group of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control and is Chair of the Board of Include Youth."