Professor Dixon said: “Criminology adds another dimension to the School’s existing programmes in Sociology and Social Policy and these new courses offer students a fantastic opportunity to study crime, and how we can respond to it, in its social context.”
Professor Dixon’s most recent work has been on the background to the shooting of 34 striking miners at Marikana in South Africa’s North West Province on August 16 2012. His previous research has looked at racially motivated offenders in North Staffordshire, the governance and accountability of London’s Metropolitan Police, innovations in policing and problem-solving policing at ‘hotspot’ locations. Professor Dixon has hands-on experience of working on community safety and policing in the voluntary sector and local government.
His work is now focussed on the evidence currently being presented to the
Marikana Commission of Inquiry into the shooting at the Lonmin-owned mine which led to the deaths of 44 people between 11 and 16 August 2012. More than 70 others were injured and hundreds of arrests made. Professor Dixon will look at what the inquiry reveals about the governance and accountability of the police in contemporary South Africa.
Dr Jordan’s expertise lies in offender health, prison mental healthcare, victimology, institutions’ structural and cultural contexts, plus theoretical criminology and penology. She has taken up her new post after several years working as a postdoc in the Institute of Mental Health on Jubilee Campus.
Dr Jordan said: “The study of criminology is an exceedingly exciting field of academia. It is inherently an interdisciplinary endeavour, due to its focus on social problems and welfare (social policy), social relations and institutions (sociology), and social deviance and behaviours (criminology).
Head of School, Professor Bruce Stafford, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Bill and Mel have joined the School. The new criminology degrees are an exciting development that builds upon a wide range of existing crime-related research and teaching conducted at Nottingham. Graduates will be able to pursue careers in the police, probation service, local/national government and voluntary associations working on crime-related issues and private companies with interests in security. Bill’s research has strong links with work done in a wide range of schools at Nottingham, including law, psychology and medicine.”
High res images of Professor Dixon and Dr Jordan are available on request.
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