Impact and engagement

The Centre for Criminal Justice Studies has a proud track record of knowledge exchange and engagement with non-academic research users at a local, national and international level.

Some examples of Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (CCJS) members’ recent engagement activities include:

• David Churchill and Miranda Clow organised a Security Heritage Workshop at the London Metropolitan Archives (16 September 2022)
• The Frank Dawtry Memorial Lecture welcomed Zoe Billingham to deliver a talk on ‘Preventative Protective Policing’ (12 October 2022).
• The British Crime Historians Symposium (BCHS) was hosted fully online for the first time in its history by CCJS members (2-3 September 2021)
• Dr Sam Lewis gave a public talk hosted by the Department for Work and Pensions and LSSI on child to parent violence (17 March 2021)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt co-authored a blogpost for the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law’s newsletter ANZSIL Perspective, on leadership liability for torture (22 February 2021)
• Professor Graham Farrell wrote an article for Policing Insight on contactless card payment limits and crime rates after the Covid-19 pandemic (16 February 2021)
• Professor David Wall participated in the UKRI-funded Cybercrime Hackathon (8-10 February 2021)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt gave a public talk to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Sunday at the Parish of St. Peter’s and Harrogate Hebrew Congregation (24 January 2021)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice report to peer review its report Separating extremist prisoners: A process study of separation centres in England and Wales (January 2021)
• Professor Graham Farrell was invited to participate in the UK Government Office of Science’s working group on Covid-19 Areas of Interest, on the subject of crime prevention. The final report references his past and ongoing work (July 2020-January 2021)
• Dr Ella Holdsworth wrote a blogpost for Women, Theatre, Justice on the impact of criminalisation and poverty on women (16 December 2020)
• Dr Jose Pina Sanchez discussed measurement error in police crime records at the UK Data Service’s Crime Surveys User Conference (8 December 2020)
• Professor David Wall co-wrote an article in The Conversation on cybercriminals (7 December 2020)
• Dr Henry Yeomans’s research on alcohol regulation is quoted in an SLSA blogpost on Covid-19 rules in pubs (1 December 2020)
• Dr Sean Butcher gave a presentation at the Institute of Community Studies on citizen strategies for collective safety (27 November 2020)
• Professor Stuart Lister discussed police accountability and the use of body worn cameras as part of a panel hosted by the Legal Hackers’ Sheffield chapter (25 November 2020)
• Dr Anna Barker and Carl McClean (Keep Britain Tidy) launched the Green Flag Award International Parks & Green Spaces Resources Hub at the World Urban Parks Congress (20 November 2020)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt discussed recommendations for the International Criminal Court at a British Institute of International and Comparative Law panel (20 November 2020)
• Dr Ilaria Zavoli contributed to the international justice podcast series Asymmetrical Haircuts on the subject of trials in absentia (18 November 2020)
• Dr Jose Pina Sanchez’s research was cited in the Sentencing Council’s assessment of the impact and implementation of the Children and Young People definitive guideline (17 November 2020)
• Professor Adam Crawford co-authored a Yorkshire Universities blog post on collaborative working between the University of Leeds and Leeds City Council (12 November 2020)
• Dr Ella Holdsworth chaired a panel at the workshop ‘Criminalisation of poverty: focus on women' hosted by Women Theatre Justice (11 November 2020)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker’s written submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ Legislative Scrutiny on ‘Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill’ was referenced in their Tenth Report (2019–21 HC 847/HL Paper 164) (10 November 2020)
• Professor David Wall gave a talk to the West Yorkshire Police Independent Advisory Group on Cybercrime on the topic ‘Cybercrime Escalation: the increase in scalability and impact of cybercrime’ (4 November 2020)
• Professor Adam Crawford co-authored a Leeds Social Sciences Institute report highlighting the collaboration between University of Leeds and Leeds City Council (3 November 2020)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt spoke at Amnesty International’s Annual Corporate Crimes Retreat on the topic ‘Proving intent and secondary modes of liability’ (20-22 October 2020)
• Professor Graham Farrell wrote in Policing Insight about crime trends during the Covid-19 pandemic (19 October 2020)
• Professor Graham Farrell wrote in Policing Insight about the changing nature of crime during the Covid-19 pandemic (6 October 2020)
• Dr David Churchill contributed to a Guardian article on the history of parks in Leeds (29 September 2020)
• Dr David Churchill was interviewed by the National Emergency Services Museum on the development of policing and criminal justice throughout history (18 September 2020)
• Dr Anna Barker chaired the Leeds Big Litter Debate as part of Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British September Clean (17 September 2020)
• Professor Adam Crawford presented at the Irish Policing Authority webinar  ‘Children, Young People and the Police: Building Confidence and Trust’ (10 September 2020)
• Professor David Wall was interviewed by Research Professional in its article on cybersecurity in universities (9 September 2020)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt gave a presentation to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on charging international crimes and modes of criminal liability (4 September 2020)
• Dr Dan Birks and Professor Graham Farrell wrote in Policing Insight about crime trends during and after the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown (4 September 2020)
• Dr Jose Pina-Sanchez and Dr Sam Lewis are being consulted by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its project to understand the reasons for potential disproportionality by race/ethnicity and other protected characteristics in CPS decision-making (September 2020)
• Professor Graham Farrell participated in a panel on crime prevention hosted by the Government Office of Science initiative ‘Rebuilding a Resilient Britain: Supporting post-Covid Recovery’ (September 2020)
• Dr David Churchill gave an online public talk on the history of Leeds’ parks as part of the Love Leeds Parks Festival’s Heritage Day, which also featured an AHRC project photographic archive and poster exhibition on Leeds’ parks (13 August 2020)
• Professor Adam Crawford gave comments to the Civic University Network on a review of research collaborations between the University of Leeds and Leeds City Council (13 August 2020)
• Dr Dan Birks co-authored a Research Software Engineer case study for the N8 Centre of Excellence in Computationally Intensive Research (N8 CIR) (17 July 2020)
• Professor David Wall participated in a workshop on Artificial Intelligence and cybercrime as part of the 12t​h International ACM Conference on Web Science, WebSci’20. Access pre-print, slides and video (6 July 2020)
• Professor Graham Farrell’s research on crime and Covid-19 was quoted in The Economist (July 2020)
• Yanna Papadodimitraki contributed an article to Infosecurity Magazine on criminalization and the cybersecurity industry (24 June 2020)
• Professor Stuart Lister contributed to a Wired article on the policing of illegal coronavirus raves (22 June 2020)
• Dr Camilo Tamayo Gomez wrote an article for The Conversation on Latin American drug cartels and Covid-19 (22 June 2020)
• Professor Stuart Lister contributed to a Wired article on enforcement of local Covid-19 lockdowns (6 June 2020)
• Dr Conor O’Reilly co-produced the telenovela Amor Secuestrado, a soap opera webseries on confronting kidnapping based on citizen science research (27 May 2020)
• Dr Camilo Tamayo Gomez was consulted by Facebook on the development of policies to treat images of Covid-19 related deaths (22 May 2020)
• Dr David Churchill’s research was discussed on the YouTube series ‘Then & Now’ (15 May 2020)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker was cited by Liam Kerr MSP in Stage 1 of the Scottish Parliament debate on motion S5M-21712, the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No. 2) Bill (13 May 2020)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker co-wrote an article for Just Security on the UK government’s legislative response to the Covid-19 as part of its ‘Assessing Emergency Powers During COVID-19’ series (12 May 2020)
• Dr Anna Barker co-wrote an article for the online platform Discover Society on the future of parks in the context of Covid-19 as part of their ‘Covid-19 Chronicles’ (29 April 2020)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker co-wrote a Law Gazette article on the UK government’s introduction of the Coronavirus Act 2020 (2 April 2020)
• Professor Graham Farrell co-wrote an article for The Conversation about the impact of Coronavirus on crime (2 April 2020)
• Dr Laura Bainbridge contributed a blogpost for the Institute of Alcohol Studies on sobriety bracelets (20 March 2020)
• Dr Laura Bainbridge presented at the UK Home Office’s Tackling Crime Forum on enforced alcohol abstinence (5 March 2020)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker’s work was cited multiple times in the ‘Report of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation on the Operation of the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006’ by Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation Jonathan Hall Q.C. Presented to the UK Parliament pursuant to Section 36(5) of the Terrorism Act 2006 (March 2020)
• Dr Sean Butcher was quoted by The Independent on citizen patrol groups (23 February 2020)
• Dr Jose Pina Sanchez contributed to a UK Data Service training workshop based on his research in sentencing data (4 February 2020)
• Dr Anna Barker presented at the Leeds City Council Parks and Countryside Service ‘Parks and Green Spaces Strategy 2020-2030’ consultation event (30 January 2020)
• Professor Elies van Sliedregt contributed to the international justice podcast series Asymmetrical Haircuts on the subject of Modes of Liability (6 January 2020)
• Five of Dr Jose Pina Sanchez’s journal publications were cited in the Department of Justice’s Northern Ireland Sentencing Review to consider introducing sentencing guidelines in that jurisdiction (22 October 2019)
• Professor David Wall co-authored an article in The Conversation on Facebook’s plans to use end-to-end encryption in its messaging services (16 December 2019)
• Dr Anna Barker, Dr David Churchill and Professor Adam Crawford hosted ‘The Future of Leeds’ Parks’ including an exhibition, public consultation, history talk and pop-up park event, with Leeds City Council (9 November 2019)
• Dr Anna Barker contributed a ‘think piece’ to The Parks Alliance blog on the future of public parks (6 November 2019)
• Dr Anna Barker, Dr David Churchill and Professor Adam Crawford published a public awareness video on the future of public parks, featured by The Parks Alliance (6 November 2019)
• Emeritus Professor Clive Walker was quoted by The National (United Arab Emirates) on the UK government's decision to remove a ‘defunct’ Al Qaeda-linked Libyan group from a list of terrorist organisations (5 November 2019)
• Emeritus Professor Clive Walker’s comments were quoted by the Financial Times in its legal analysis of Julian Assange’s extradition case (23 October 2019)
• Dr Anna Barker was nominated for the Leeds City Council Communities & Environment Awards for Excellence 2019 in the category of Partner of the Year (11 October 2019)
• Dr David Churchill gave a presentation on the history of the security sector at the 60th anniversary launch of the International Professional Security Association (25 September 2019)
• Professor David Wall contributed an article on ransomware attacks to The Conversation, ‘Ransomware attacks on cities are rising – authorities must stop paying out’ (27 August 2019)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker gave the keynote at the Advanced Summer Programme on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and the Rule of Law, organised by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and the T.M.C. Asser Institute (26-30 August 2019)
• Dr Anna Barker presented at the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s ‘Empowering Parks for the 21st Century’ event, co-hosted by the Landscape Institute, the Parks Action Group, West Midlands Parks Forum and The Parks Alliance (26 August 2019)
• Professor Adam Crawford was interviewed by Policing Insight on academic and policing partnerships (21 August 2019)
• Professor David Wall was interviewed by BBC Radio London on ransomware attacks on cities (13 August 2019)
• Professor David Wall was interviewed by Radio Sputnik on ransomware (26 July 2019)
• Professor David Wall contributed an article on cyber security to Computing ‘Cyber security: Think like the enemy’ (16 July 2019)
• Professor David Wall gave the presentation ‘Understanding Cybercrime as an Ecosystem’ to the UK Home Office Cybercrime Strategy Group (2 July 2019)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker was invited to meet and make submissions to the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law on the ‘revocation of Citizenship’ (10 May 2019)
• A new sentencing data scale developed by Dr Jose Pina-Sánchez et al. being adopted by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales to assess the impact of its sentencing guidelines on severity (5 February 2019)
• Ilaria Zavoli and Dr Colin King (University of Sussex) submitting written evidence to an expert panel of the Government of British Columbia, Canada, on money laundering in the real estate market (23 January 2019)
• Ilaria Zavoli giving a presentation on money laundering in the UK real estate market at the Home Office (15 January 2019)
• Jose Pina-Sánchez et al. presenting findings on the measurement of sentence severity at the Ministry of Justice analytical seminar series (12 December 2018)
• Jose Pina-Sánchez et al. presenting on sentence severity at the ‘Collaborating to shape the future of sentencing research conference’ organised by the Sentencing Council and City University  (7 November 2018)
• Ilaria Zavoli presenting at the 10th  Research Conference on Organised Crime hosted by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security in The Hague. Ilaria presented her research on real estate agents’ approaches to money laundering in the UK property market. The Conference has been co-funded by the Internal Security Fund of the European Union (10-11 October 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker, appointed by the Home Office as Senior Special Advisor to the Independent Reviewer of the Terrorism Legislation, is featured in the latest Annual Report of the Reviewer, Max Hill QC. In the light of the recent use of chemical weapons in Salisbury, Professor Walker investigates the coverage of the legal definition of terrorism and whether it can apply to state actors (10 October 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker’s written evidence to debates on the current Counter Terrorism and Border Security Bill 2017 was commented upon in the House of Lords including by his former student Baroness Sayeeda Warsi (9 October 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker’s written evidence to debates on the current Counter Terrorism and Border Security Bill 2017 was commented upon in Parliament by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (12 September 2018)
• Dr David Churchill was interviewed about Victorian lock-picking competitions and the history of security for the Slate/The Economist podcast ‘The Secret History of the Future’ (3 October 2018)
• Dr Henry Yeomans gave an invited presentation on minimum unit pricing to a group of medical professionals at a Pan Yorkshire Hepatology training day in Leeds (27 September 2018)
• Dr Conor O'Reilly and Dr Camilo Tamayo Gomez participated in a two-hour special of the programme Por Que Sera on Radio Nacional Colombia dedicated to their Newton Fund research project on kidnapping in Mexico (25 September 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker was appointed as a consultant by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to provide expert comment on drafts of the Sri Lankan government’s proposed Counter Terrorism Act of 2018, with the latest version available online (9 October 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker co-authored, with Max Hill QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, a submission in relation to Clause 3 of the UK Counter Terrorism and Border Security Bill following the Bill Scrutiny Committee on 26 June 2018 (7 July 2018)
• Dr Emma Wincup was co-opted to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs Recovery Committee to support their programme of work on drug use and vulnerability and presented evidence at an evidence-gathering day based on her work on young people, drug use and homelessness (3 July 2018)
• Ilaria Zavoli presenting at a workshop hosted by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on her research on money laundering in the UK real estate market (2 July 2018)
• Stuart Lister and Dr Jose Pina-Sanchez’s research into police use of body-worn cameras was reported in several national and local media outlets including Policing Insight, the Yorkshire Post and Radio Aire (26 June 2018)
• Jose Pina-Sánchez contributed analysis towards the Sentencing Council for England and Wales’ assessment of its Fraud, Bribery and Money Laundering Definitive Guideline (25 June 2019)
• Jose Pina-Sánchez receiving multiple citations in a report from the Sentencing Advisory Council in defence of a Sentencing Guidelines Council in Victoria, Australia.
• Jose Pina-Sánchez leading a workshop at the Sentencing Council for England and Wales on the application of analytical tools to assess changes in sentence severity and consistency using R (22 May 2018)
• Dr Henry Yeomans gave a presentation on alcohol pricing interventions at Public Health England’s headquarters (20 April 2018)
• Ilaria Zavoli’s written evidence submission in response to the Treasury Committee public consultation on ‘Digital currencies’, pointing out the money laundering risks of the use of cryptocurrencies in the UK real estate market (April 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker, at the invitation of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, compiled a review on ‘Counterterrorism in the United Kingdom’ which was published in their Counter Terrorism Yearbook 2018. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan research institute on strategic policy, set up by the Government to provide fresh ideas on Australia's defence and strategic policy choices (27 March 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker gave a presentation (with Simon McKay) on 'Intelligence Law in the United Kingdom' at the Zweites Symposium zum Recht der Nachrichtendienste: Reform der Nachrichtendienste zwischen Vergesetzlichung und Internationalisierung, Berlin, organised by the German government’s Budesministerium des Innern (15-16 March 2018)
• Professor Emeritus Clive Walker contributed written evidence to debates on the current Counter Terrorism and Border Security Bill 2017 (November 2017)
• Dr David Churchill gave a public lecture on the history of policing and prosecution in Yorkshire at an ‘Our Criminal Ancestors’ event at Hull History Centre (23 September 2017)
• Dr Conor O'Reilly was interviewed by the New Scientist regarding the British government proposals for a 'smart border' in Ireland post-Brexit and its security implications (16 August 2017)
• Dr Henry Yeomans gave a presentation on alcohol pricing interventions at the Home Office (June 21 2017)
• Dr Anna Barker, Dr Nathan Booth, Dr David Churchill and Professor Adam Crawford presented a public exhibition on ‘Leeds Parks: Past, Present and Future’ at Roundhay Park (29 April – 1 May 2017) and at Cross Flatts Park (3 June 2017)
• Dr Anna Barker, Dr Nathan Booth, Dr David Churchill and Professor Adam Crawford displayed findings from their research on Leeds public parks, and led an historic walking tour of Woodhouse Moor, at the University’s ‘Be Curious’ public engagement festival (25 March 2017)
• Dr David Churchill contributed an article on victim-blaming and crime prevention to The Conversation, ‘Can the Victorians teach us how to treat “careless” victims of crime?’ (7 February 2017)