Welcome to my blog

I thought this would be a great way to tell everyone about the many interesting things that I do in my professional life as a researcher, writer and educator. At the moment, my interest is mainly focused on policing and more specifically on police custody i.e. where people are taken on arrest whilst a decision is reached about charge. Watch this space for updates on my whirlwind academic life.

About Me

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Layla Skinns is a Senior Lecturer in criminology in the Centre for Criminological Research at the School of Law, University of Sheffield. Before joining the Centre for Criminological Research, Layla worked at the University of Cambridge, where she was the Adrian Socio-Legal Research Fellow at Darwin College and a Teaching Associate on the MSt. in Applied Criminology for senior police, prison and probation staff. Whilst working as a Research Fellow at Darwin College, she co-organised the prestigious Darwin College Lecture Series on the theme of risk. Her qualifications are: MA (Hons) Sociology and Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 2000; MPhil Criminological Research, University of Cambridge, 2001 and PhD Criminology, University of Cambridge, 2005

Monday 3 October 2011

More conferences and talks

Last week I went to two really interesting but quite different events:

1.      A one-day event on "Policing at a time of contraction and constraint: Re-imagining the role and function of contemporary policing", which was sponsored by the British Academy and convened by Professor Andrew Millie (Edghill University) and Dr Karen Bullock (Surrey University). Speakers Robert Reiner, Ben Bowling, Nick Tilley, Mike Hough and Simon Holdaway. The focus of the event was on discussing what the role and function of the police should be, who should determine this and through what mechanisms should policing be delivered. Many thanks to Andrew and Karen for organising and inviting me to this stimulating event.
2.      A Custody Officers’ one-day seminar, run by the National Custody Officer Forum (NCF), which is affiliated to the Sergeant’s Central Committee of the Police Federation. This was the first event of its kind, which provided an interesting window into the issues that are currently significant to custody officers. For example, Michael Zander spoke about the recent Hookway case, which affected police bail decisions. Whilst the new chair of the NCF, Sgt Eddie Entwhistle, explored civilianization and privatization and its continuing impacts on custody officers.

Whilst it was less stressful to simply attend rather than present at these events, I’m also looking forward to presenting a few ideas of my own at the following conferences and events between now and Christmas:

·         Invited talk on ‘Plural policing and police custody’ at a conference on ‘Preventing deaths in police care’, which is organised by Capita, 19 October 2011. This will be attended by the police (largely Inspectors and Custody Officers) and other CJ practitioners. Unfortunately, I am unable to talk about the overnight detention of children, which is what I originally agreed to speak about.
·         Invited talk on ‘Doing research on police custody: some notes from the field’, Criminal Justice Centre, School of Law, Warwick University, 22-24 November 2011.
·         ‘Diversity, difference and vulnerability in police custody: key issues from comparative research in four common-law jurisdictions’, American Society of Criminology conference, 16-19 November, 2011, Washington, D.C.
·         Invited paper on ‘The role of the law in policing’, at a conference on ‘Tides and currents in police theories’ convened by the Flemish Centre for Police Studies and the Dutch Foundation for Society, Security and Police, 12-13 December 2011.
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