Professor Gillian McIvor

Emeritus Professor

Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology Colin Bell Building, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Gillian McIvor

About me

I joined theFaculty in April 2008 as Professor of Criminology and, until 2016, founding Co-Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (www.sccjr.ac.uk) and from 2017 was Deputy AssociateDean for Research. I was previously Professor of Criminology at Lancaster University and, before that, Professor of Social Work and Director of the Social Work Research Centre at the University of Stirling.

My research has focused primarily on community sanctions, with particular interests in women in the criminal justice system, problem-solving courts and criminal justice responses to drug-related crime. Much of my work is policy related and/or comparative/international. The latter includes research on women leaving prison and juvenile justice in Australia and on community sanctions in Europe. I was most recently involved in a 2 year EU funded project on electronic monitoring in EU member states(http://emeu.leeds.ac.uk/) and a study of the Problem-solving Approach at Aberdeen Sheriff Court (with Ipsos MORI) funded by the Scottish Government.

I am a member of the European Society of Criminology Working Groups on Community Sanctions, Gender and Justice and Sentencing and Penal Decision-Making and was a member of the EU COST Offender Supervision in Europe working group on decision-making (http://www.offendersupervision.eu/). I am also a member of the Spinhuis Centre for Research on Incarcerated Females at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Amsterdam (http://spinhuiscenter.org/).

Since 2018 I have been an Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the University but continue to be involved in research and scholarship. My most recent work has focused on parole. This has included a survey of Scottish prisoners’ experiences of the parole process (with Dr Lynn Kelly and Dr Karen Richard) and, with Professor Nicky Padfield, co-editorship of a themed edition on parole of Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health and the organisation of a webinar on parole and mental health under the auspices of the organisation Crime in Mind (www.crimeinmind.co.uk).

I am currently a member of the Scottish Prison Service Women’s Strategy Advisory Group and the research group of the Parole Board for Scotland.

Research centres/groups