Andrew Wooff
Andrew Wooff

Dr Andrew Wooff

Associate Professor

 0131 455 3352

  A.Wooff@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

I am an Associate Professor of Criminology at Edinburgh Napier University and the Head of Social Sciences and former Programme Leader for BSc (Hons) Policing and Criminology.

I am currently working on 2 externally funded COVID-19 focused pieces of research: the first (PI, SFC funded, £44k) is examining the pluralised policing responses to the pandemic in Scotland. The second (Co-I, ESRC funded, £36k) explores local authority partnership responses to the pandemic.

I have published on a number of topics, including police custody, rural policing, vulnerability and volunteering in the police. I have recently published in the Journal of Rural Studies, Policing Journal, Policing and Society, Punishment and Society, European Journal of Criminology and Policing: A journal of policy and practice .

In the past 5 years, I have completed 3 externally funded projects as PI (totalling £33,000), the most recent of which examined the Special Constabulary in Scotland. I have also been Co-I on a further 3 projects (totalling £308,800). As a result of my research and publications, I have been invited to sit on the Home Office Custody Review Design Board, the editorial board for two book series and the international advisory panel for a research project at the University of Sheffield. I am also the co-lead for the Education and Leadership network within the Scottish Institute of Policing Research (SIPR) and I am a member of the British Society of Criminology. I currently supervise 4 PhD students, on who has just completed his corrections.

My research interests are varied and interdisciplinary, informed by extending theoretical developments in criminology, geography and rural sociology. I am interested in how the police use their power in different ways and on different populations, particularly in relation to rural policing, police custody, and the use of police volunteers.

Prior to joining Edinburgh Napier University in 2015, I completed my PhD in 2014 under the supervision of Professor Nick Fyfe at the University of Dundee. This focused on anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland. During my PhD I was seconded into the Police Reform team where I completed research on partnership working. I subsequently completed a Post-Doc at the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield, funded by the ESRC, which explored police custody in England and Wales.

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Appointed to the British Society of Criminology Policing Network as National Lead for the ‘Policing Research into Teaching’ portfolio
  • International Research Advisory Group: Good Police Custody Implementation Board, meets quarterly
  • Invited to give evidence to Scottish Parliament Rural Affairs Select Committee, 06/03/2018
  • Academic advisor to the Home Office National Police Custody Design Board, meets quarterly
  • Independent Assurance Group for Police Scotland Custody
  • Invited expert on rural crime, Scottish Government Cross Party Group on rural Policy, 24/02/2016

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Invited Panel member: Law Enforcement Public Health Conference
  • Invited to be panel chair: American Society of Criminology annual conference, 11/2019
  • Police education and professionalisation: Critical international perspectives
  • Panel organiser and Chair at ESC: Conditions of Police Custody in England and Wales
  • Invited presentation to Scandinavian delegation: Professionalising the police: The Scottish experience
  • Panel member: EUPST II conference
  • Invited speaker: Canterbury Christchurch University annual conference
  • Panel Chair: European Society of Criminology: Police custody in rural Scotland
  • Carceral geographies conference: The role of space, place and emotions in police custody
  • Invited discussant: Outsourcing in custody: Preliminary reflections on the good police custody study – Presented at the ESRC Markets in Policing Seminar Series, University of York, 09/06/15
  • Panel Chair: The role of emotion, space and place in Police Custody, The European Society of Criminology, 01/09/15

 

Editorial Activity

  • Editorial board: Palgrave Critical studies in policing book series
  • Editorial Board: Bristol University Press 'Rural Crime book series'

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Invited External Examiner: Canterbury Christchurch University
  • External Examiner, University of Chester

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Review for the 2019 COALESCE Irish Research Council call

 

Invited Speaker

  • SIPR annual conference: The Conditions of Police Custody and the importance of 'good' design
  • George Mason University: Police Education in Scotland
  • Invited talk to Scandinavian delegation: Police professionalisation in Scotland
  • Invited presentation to the National Custody Forum
  • Invited participant: Knowledge exchange and police professionalisation
  • Invited presentation: Treading the front line: Tartanization and police academic partnerships
  • Fully paid invitation to speak in Stockholm at Rural Studies Conference after publishing my paper in the Journal of Rural Studies, 09/2014
  • Policing territoriality in rural Scotland: Applying a normative approach to understanding some of the challenges of rural policing – RGS-IBG annual conference, Edinburgh, 31/08/12
  • Beyond the thin blue line: The everyday impacts of ASB – Presented at RGS-IBG conference, 28/08/13
  • Policing vulnerability? The impact and implication of No Cold Calling Zones in Angus – Presentation for Trading Standards, Angus, 06/09/2010
  • A snapshot of ASB in Scotland – Presentation to Chinese Police Officer Delegation, Edinburgh, 22/05/12
  • The policing of insecurity: Policing places, policing people– Co-convener of session at RGS-IBG annual conference, Edinburgh, 31/08/12
  • Relationships and Responses: Policing ASB in rural Scotland – Presented at Symposium on Rural Crime in Sockholm, Sweden, 17/09/14
  • Chair: Lothian and Borders Criminal Justice Authority on Electronic Monitoring, 17/02/16
  • Invited talk: Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in England and Wales in the 21st century: Is it ‘good’ enough? – Presented at the Dundee Policing and Criminal Justice seminar group, 30/1/14
  • Police custody in the 21st Century: Is it ‘good’ or ‘good enough’? – Presented to the National Custody Forum, Police Federation, Stoke on Trent, 23/09/14
  • Invited talk: Policing ASB in rural Scotland: The importance of context – Presented at the International Policing Conference, Tulliallan, 20/10/14
  • Discretion in Police Custody – Presented at the British Society of Criminology conference, 11/07/14
  • Partnership working within Police Scotland – Presented to Senior Management Team, Police Scotland, 12/12/12
  • Policing anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland – Space, Society Research Group, School of the Environment, Dundee, Scotland, 16/12/2011

 

Media Activity

  • Various media outlet coverage of Special Constable training programme (The Metro/ Edinburgh Evening News) on 29/04/20
  • Invited participant: BBC Scotland John Beattie Show, 18/05/2018
  • Wired Magazine Interview: Uk police are using AI to make custodial decisions, 01/03/2018
  • Invited participant: French national radio discussion on artificial intelligence, 10/07/2018
  • Edinburgh Evening Telegraph interviews (various)
  • Interviewed for "Quality Magazine", 02/10/2018
  • Scotsman article: Country cops could teach city cops a lesson, 29/06/2017

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • British Society of Criminology
  • Deputy Chair, Sheffield University Policing Research Group
  • Associate member: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research
  • Interim co-Lead, Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) Education and Leadership network
  • Scottish Institute of Policing Research

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Law Enforcement Public Health Stakeholder Engagement event
  • Lothians Criminal Justice Forum: Chair
  • Invited presentation to stakeholders: College of Policing 'Market of Ideas'

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner: Canterbury Christchurch University

 

Reviewing

  • Peer Reviewer for multiple journals (British Journal of Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Policing and Society, Policing: A journal of policy and practice, European journal of Criminology, Punishment and Society, Policing: An international journal of strategies and management

 

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Date


34 results

Police legitimacy in context: an exploration of “soft” power in police custody in England

Journal Article
Skinns, L., Rice, L., Sprawson, A., & Wooff, A. (2017)
Police legitimacy in context: an exploration of “soft” power in police custody in England. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 40(3), 601-613. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-06-2016-0077
For the most part, the procedural justice model has been found to generalise across different social groups and social contexts in the Anglo-American world (e.g. Jackson et al...

Police custody delivery in the twenty-first century in England and Wales: current arrangements and their implications for patterns of policing.

Journal Article
Skinns, L., Sprawson, A., Sorsby, A., Smith, R., & Wooff, A. (2017)
Police custody delivery in the twenty-first century in England and Wales: current arrangements and their implications for patterns of policing. European Journal of Policing Studies, 4(3), 325-348
Since the 1980s, police custody in England and Wales has experienced civilianization and privatization of roles once performed by the police. The purposes of this paper are to...

Measuring risk and efficiency in Police Scotland custody settings: A pilot study

Report
Wooff, A. & Elvins, M. (2017)
Measuring risk and efficiency in Police Scotland custody settings: A pilot study. http://www.sipr.ac.uk/downloads/SIPR_Annual_Report_16.pdf: Scottish Institute for Policing Research
No abstract available.

Policing in rural Scotland

Other
Wooff, A. (2017)
Policing in rural Scotland. https://rsgs.org/exploring-geography/publications/geographer-archive/
No abstract available.

‘Soft’ Policing in Rural Scotland

Journal Article
Wooff, A. (2017)
‘Soft’ Policing in Rural Scotland. Policing, 11(2), 123-131. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paw031
‘Soft’ policing focuses on the non-coercive elements of policing, typically community engagement, situated knowledge and negotiated order maintenance. Although soft policing a...

Policing the countryside in a devolving United Kingdom.

Book Chapter
Yarwood, R., & Wooff, A. (2016)
Policing the countryside in a devolving United Kingdom. In J. F. Donnemeyer (Ed.), The Routledge international handbook of rural criminology, (375-386). Taylor & Francis
No abstract available.

The importance of context : understanding the nature of anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland.

Book
Wooff, A. (2016)
The importance of context : understanding the nature of anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland. In Donnermeyer, J. F. (Ed.). The Routledge international handbook of rural criminology.. Taylor & Francis (Routledge). ISBN 9781138799745, 9781315755885
This chapter seeks to provide a starting point for understanding anti-social behaviour (herein ASB) within a rural context, and how this provides important illumination of the...

The ethics of researching the police : dilemmas and new directions.

Book
Skinns, L., Wooff, A. & Sprawson, A. (2015)
The ethics of researching the police : dilemmas and new directions. In Brunger, M., Tong, S. & Martin, D. (Eds.). Introduction to policing research : taking lessons from practice., 185-203. Taylor & Francis (Routledge). ISBN 9780415750400, 9781138013292, 9781315795294
This chapter examines key ethical dilemmas faced by social science researchers. It explores informed and voluntary consent, confidentiality and anonymity, and relationships in...

Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in the twenty-first century: Is it ‘good’ enough?

Journal Article
Skinns, L., Wooff, A., & Sprawson, A. (2015)
Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in the twenty-first century: Is it ‘good’ enough?. Policing and Society, 27(4), 358-371. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2015.1058377
Since the 1980s, police custody in England and Wales has seen the civilianisation and privatisation of key roles formerly performed by police officers and changes to how polic...

Policing anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland.

Journal Article
Wooff, A. (2015)
Policing anti-social behaviour in rural Scotland. Scottish Justice Matters, 3(2), 19-20

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Deputy Chair: Sheffield University Policing Research Group
  • ESRC PhD Funding: Space, Place and the Policing of Anti-social Behaviour in Scotland

Current Post Grad projects

Previous Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • PhD supervisor to Andy Tatnell at University of West of Scotland: The role of higher education and police professionalisation