Crime & Justice Research Group (CJRG)
About the CJRG
The Crime and Justice Research Group builds upon the traditional strengths of criminological research at Cardiff, combining a strong focus upon policy-relevant research with a significant contribution to key theoretical debates within criminology and social science in general.
CJRG members conduct high quality empirical research into the key local, national and international influences over crime and the governance of crime control. They attract substantial research funding from a range of sources including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Home Office, the National Assembly for Wales, charitable foundations and other bodies. They undertake a substantial amount collaborative research with other members of the School of Social Sciences and other departments in Cardiff. Group members also work in partnership with colleagues in other universities, in the UK and abroad.
The Crime and Justice Research Group provides high quality supervision and training of doctoral students in criminology at Cardiff. The School of Social Sciences has ESRC recognition for full-time 1+3 PhD studentships by the Socio-Legal and Criminology Panel. Postgraduate members are closely integrated into the activities of the Research Group. They attend Group meetings and seminars, and are encouraged to develop their research profiles in a range of ways.
The Crime and Justice Research Group is a vibrant forum for staff and postgraduates within the School, across the University and inter-institutionally. It has a long tradition of successful collaborative work and mutual support for its members. Viewing the work of the group as a whole, our shared niche excellence and unique imprimatur lies increasingly in the comparative theorising and empirical research into the multi-level governance of crime control and security.
Collectively the Crime and Justice Research Group edits the British Society of Criminology’s (BSC) official international journal, Criminology and Criminal Justice (published by Sage). This prestigious success was achieved in 2006 in the face of strong competition from other Criminology departments across the UK and provides the School and the University with an important national and international esteem indicator and research profile (for further information contact the editors on ccj@cf.ac.uk).
The Research Group’s profile will also by enhanced by its close involvement with the University Police Science Institute (funded for 5 years for approx. £1 million) and its newly appointed director, Dr Martin Innes. Our aim over the next five years is to help develop this exciting policy, research and training institute, which will also house one senior research fellow and PhD students. In addition, the Group is in the early stages of developing a proposed Welsh Centre for Crime, Justice and Safety Research with other Criminology departments/staff across the whole of Wales and relevant government offices (for further information contact Professor Gordon Hughes - hughesgh@cardiff.ac.uk).
The Research Group also has close links with European-wide research networks. Since 2006 it has become a member of GERN (Group Europeen de Recherches sur les Normativites: www.gern-cnrs.com/) and two of its members (Hughes and Edwards) co-direct the European Society of Criminology working group, the European Governance of Public Safety Research Network (EUGPRSN) – see the website www.esc-eurocrim.org/workgroups.shtml