Critical Criminology

My main research interests lie in critical criminology, in particular the construction of both crime and associated criminological concepts such as victims and offenders. I am fascinated by how each society is able to decide why certain actions are criminal while others are not , and the way in which each society imagines and fears its criminals, particularly if this imagined criminal world is much different from the empirical reality. I am keen to develop the work I completed as an undergraduate during my final year empirical research project in examining the construction of crime through the lens of gender, working from feminist theories that see crime as one of many structures within society that create and maintain a patriarchal frame work of gender. My time away from study has given the opportunity to reflect upon the work I performed as an undergraduate however, and I now realise that, whilst I am still proud of it, it did have deficiencies in its construction and methodology that I wish to address in my masters research. Particularly that I focused heavily on gender to the exclusion of other important facets of identity such as sexuality and race. Furthermore I want to go beyond simply understanding how the criminal law shapes society's conception of these concepts but to further interrogate if oppressed or minority groups use criminal regulation as a means to create identity as a response to criminality itself. I am also interested in developing on themes and ideas I uncovered during my dissertation research that intrigued me but were beyond the scope of my research question, namely the role that politics and political ideologies play in shaping the discourse surrounding crime, and the impact this has on the perception and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. My aim with my research is to advance the field of critical criminology within the study of identity and crime construction, and to use empirical fieldwork to create policy orientated research that aims to educate and indicate practical means of addressing deficiencies in the current construction of crime within the criminal justice system. In the long term, I wish to continue my research to a doctorate level and complete a PhD in criminology, and thus want to undertake a graduate programme that will give me the proper grounding in high quality intensive research and analysis skills that will qualify me for such a long term and trying commitment.