Members of the ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre community have been awarded for their work at the University of Leeds Research Impact and Engagement Awards.
Wednesday 27 November 2024
Centre Co-Investigator Dr Laura Bainbridge and Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Amy Loughery won the Emerging Policy Impact Award for their work on cuckooing. Research Affiliate Dr Anna Barker and team won the Mature Policy Impact Award for their safer parks project.
Dr Rebecca Shaw was also nominated for her work on changing the narrative of domestic abuse in Leeds and West Yorkshire, funded through the Centre’s Early Career Researcher Development Fund.
The Research Impact and Engagement Awards 2024 recognise and celebrate the exceptional contributions of researchers and support teams who strive to make a meaningful difference in the world.
Understanding, preventing and disrupting Cuckooing Victimisation
‘Cuckooing’ is a predatory practice where criminals befriend or exploit vulnerable people to gain access to their homes and use them as a base for illegal activity. A ground-breaking N8 PRP-funded study conducted by Laura Bainbridge and Amy Loughery between 2022-2024 confirmed that cuckooing is a complex and evolving crime, and that tackling it requires a multi-agency response that is designed to eliminate organised crime groups and target-harden potential victims. To facilitate the exchange of cuckooing knowledge and promising practice between members, Drs Bainbridge and Loughery established the Cuckooing Research & Prevention Network in November 2023.
To date, more than 800 academics, practitioners and policy-makers have joined the Network, spanning the local, regional and national levels. In addition to organising and chairing five sold-out Network events during 2024, Dr Bainbridge and Dr Loughery have co-produced a cuckooing animation and a cuckooing ‘toolkit’ with Network members.
Laura Bainbridge has also been key voice in the campaign to make cuckooing a specific criminal offence, which culminated in cuckooing clauses being inserted into the Criminal Justice Bill prior to Parliament being dissolved in May 2024.
Full team
Laura Bainbridge, (School of Law, University of Leeds) with Amy Loughery (School of Law, University of Leeds), Anne Rannard (National County Lines Coordination Centre), Jennifer Griffiths (West Yorkshire Police), Heather Ashby (Leeds City Council) and James Allen (Horton Housing).
Safer parks: improving access for women and girls
The UK’s 27,000 parks and green spaces are essential for health and wellbeing, but gendered safety concerns are perhaps the biggest factor limiting use by women and girls. Research by Dr Anna Barker and Professor George Holmes on park safety perceptions led to the co-creation of ‘Safer Parks: Improving Access for Women and Girls’ guidance, adopted by the Green Flag Award. This guidance offers principles for park design and management through a gendered lens. It has been used locally, nationally, and internationally, influencing park audit and assessment schemes, design and management practices, transit strategies, award programmes, bystander training, design-out-crime officer training, and parliamentary discussions.
Anna Barker, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice & Criminology, said of the project:
“The real strength of this work is the breadth and depth of the collaborative partnership, their commitment to bring about change and the value of doing this by engaging with women and girls lived experiences.”
Full team
Anna Barker (School of Law, University of Leeds), with Rizwana Alam (School of Law, University of Leeds), Lauren Cape-Davenhill (School of Geography, University of Leeds), George Holmes (School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds), Kersti Mitchell (Media Relations, University of Leeds), Sally Osei-Appiah (School of Law, University of Leeds), Sibylla Warrington Brown (School of Law, University of Leeds), Lynsey Atherton (Keep Britain Tidy), Tracy Brabin (Mayor of West Yorkshire and West Yorkshire Combined Authority), Josie Brookes (Freelance), Nathan Capstick (ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre), Adam Crawford (ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre), Helen Forman (West Yorkshire Combined Authority), James Harper (Harper Perry), Alison Lowe (West Yorkshire Combined Authority), Carl McClean (Keep Britain Tidy), Jeanette Morris-Boam (Leeds Women’s Aid), Clare Perry (Harper Perry), Vanessa Rolfe (West Yorkshire Police), Paul Todd (Keep Britain Tidy), Rosie Turner (Harper Perry), Michelle Walde (Keep Britain Tidy), Susannah Walker (Make Space for Girls) and Ian Yates (West Yorkshire Combined Authority).
Domestic Abuse Service Providers and their Stories
This project was funded by the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre’s Early Career Researcher Development Fund and was conducted by Dr Rebecca Shaw (University of Leeds) in partnership with Leeds Women’s Aid, Behind Closed Doors, Fresh Futures, and Foundations +Choices.
The project aimed to investigate the power and persistence of dominant narratives in relation to domestic abuse, as witnessed by service providers who support both victims and perpetrators.
A key ambition of this project was not only to identify and analyse these narratives, but to consider how we might improve future policy and practice to change them.
The project found that:
- Harmful narratives which perpetuate myths, stereotypes and biases of domestic abuse and victimhood are still prevalent and persistent in the domestic abuse field.
- Practitioners encounter variations of these narratives on a daily basis in their work and find that they are entrenched in individuals, organisations and wider society.
- Practitioners are clear that further work needs to be done to revise these systemic and structural narratives and that educating young children should be the priority if we want to ‘re-write’ the wider cultural narrative of domestic abuse.
Full team
Dr Rebecca Shaw (School of Law, University of Leeds) with Ruth Davany (Behind Closed Doors), Laura Buchan (+Choices), Mark Farmer (Fresh Futures), Janice Fife (Leeds Women’s Aid), Eran Sandhu (West Yorkshire Combined Authority), DS Emma Bell (West Yorkshire Police), Megan Bennett (West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership), Lydia Isherwood (West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership), Jude Roberts (Leeds City Council) and Helen Lord (Leeds City Council).