Dr Laura Bainbridge

Profile

I am an Associate Professor in Criminal Justice, having joined the School of Law in January 2020. Prior to this, I held an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I completed my PhD in Social Policy at the University of York in 2017 and I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Responsibilities

• Co-Director - Centre for Criminal Justice Studies (2025-28)
• Programme Leader Criminal Justice and Criminology BA (Semester 2 - 2027)
• Director of Employability - Criminal Justice (2021-2024)

Research interests

My research is empirically grounded, interdisciplinary, and impact-focused. I specialise in violence reduction, criminal exploitation, vulnerability, and the policy process. I am internationally recognised for my work on cuckooing victimisation and enforced alcohol abstinence (‘sobriety tagging’), and I founded and currently chair multi-level, multi-agency, networks on these topics.

I am currently the Principal Investigator on two externally funded projects:

1. Project AL-V: Rethinking The ‘Alpha Victim’
2. The Wearability of SCRAM Continuous Alcohol Monitoring (CAM)

I am also a Co-Investigator and the ECR Champion for the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre.

I have conducted qualitative research for more than 20 years, and have utilised a range of traditional and creative research methods to capture empirically rich and insightful data. I share my own methodological expertise and that of others by serving as a Qualitative Methods Ambassador for the University of Leeds Social Research Methods Centre. Outputs from my studies are often innovative and practitioner-orientated, with recent examples including a comprehensive cuckooing toolkit, a virtual reality training resource, an animation, a podcast, and a short film.

I contribute to strategic research development as a Co-Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, a member of the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership’s Research Advisory Group, and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. I also contribute to policy formation and change. I regularly brief government ministers and senior civil servants, produce policy briefings, and lobby Parliament for the introduction of new legislation to safeguard victims of crime.

Primary investigator (PI)

• County Lines Policing and Vulnerability
• Preventing and Disrupting County Lines 'Cuckooing’ Victimisation
• Project AL-V: Rethinking the ‘Alpha Victim'

Qualifications

• PhD Social Policy
• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP)
• MA Social Policy
• BA (Hons) Politics

Professional memberships

• British Society of Criminology
• European Society of Criminology
• Social Policy Association
• Socio-Legal Studies Association
• LEPH / GLEPHA

Student education

I have taught in Higher Education settings since 2013 and have extensive experience of module design and management, lecturing, seminar facilitation, and assessment.

I currently deliver research-led teaching on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules on the BA Criminal Justice and Criminology, the MSc Criminal Justice and Criminology, and the LLM Criminal Justice and Criminal Law. I also supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations.

I co-supervise three Doctoral Researchers: Sat Kartar Chandan, James Young, and Sophie de Groot.

I am an external examiner for Queen Mary University of London.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Criminal Justice Studies
• Centre for Law and Social Justice

Current postgraduate researchers

• Sophie de Groot
• James Tyler Young