This page contains information about the Centre for Law and Society's current and recent research projects.

This programme centres on a large, single-cohort longitudinal study of some 4,300 young people who started secondary school in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1998 and are now therefore young adults. `The Study’ addresses a range of fundamental questions about the causes of criminal and risky behaviours in young people. It includes a study of the social geography and patterns of crime in the city, allowing the development of cohort members to be linked with the characteristics of their residential neighbourhoods. Specific aims of the programme are to advance understanding of gender differences in patterns of offending (that have received little attention from quantitative studies); to show how and why some offenders, and not others, become targets for intervention by the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, and how these interventions influence later behaviour; and to further our knowledge about the dynamics and causal mechanisms of discrete offending trajectories.  The programme uniquely brings together evidence and theory at the levels of individual psychology and social context or structure.

Over the last eight years, the Edinburgh Study has played an active role in informing the development of policies by voluntary agencies, local authorities, and central government, on schools, youth crime and youth justice.  Team members are regularly invited to give presentations on study findings at high profile user-group events and research based policy advice has been sought from the Scottish Executive and the Home Affairs Team of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.  As part of the Study’s dissemination activities a series of applied policy research digests has been launched. The study has also actively developed a media strategy the aim of which is to inform public policy debate by providing evidence-based comment on issues relating to youth transitions and crime and to contribute to public education. 
 
The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime's website is here.

The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research has been established as a partnership between Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and Glasgow Caledonian universities, and in alliance with Aberdeen, Dundee, Strathclyde and St Andrew’s universities. Professor Richard Sparks is one of three co-directors of SCCJR. SCCJR has three inter-related aims:

1. To improve research infrastructure and expand research capacity in crime and criminal justice in Scotland, through the integration of existing research capabilities and the uniting of an interdisciplinary spectrum of skills and experience, and by creating new expertise through the provision of research training and opportunities for new researchers.
2. To carry out an integrated programme of high quality research that improves the evidence base of crime reduction and criminal justice policies.
3. To make informed conceptual, methodological, and analytical contributions to theoretical thinking and policy development in relation to crime and criminal justice both in Scotland and internationally.

The work of the Centre is realised through six Thematic Research Networks, each involving researchers from a number of universities. The Networks provide a framework for SCCJR’s core research programme, and also provide a structure for developing communities of enquiry involving researchers and other stakeholders. The School hosts the Network on Criminal Justice Questions, Evidence, Statistics and Trends (CJ-Quest), under the leadership of Mrs Susan McVie. The Network aims to improve the quantitative criminological research base in Scotland by expanding expertise and capacity in large-scale survey methodology, quantitative statistical analysis and complex data modelling. Key objectives are to expand the use of existing Scottish datasets in relation to crime and criminal justice, with a view to enhancing methodological development in the field of criminological survey research, and the promotion and facilitation of Scottish datasets as tools for teaching and training. CJ-Quest will also play a key role in the design, methodological development and analysis of the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey.

This project has been undertaken by Professor Anne Griffiths in Scotland and Dr Randy Kandel at the John Jay College of Justice in New York has been a project of this kind. Funded by the Annenberg Foundation in the USA and the British Academy, the study examines the ways in which children's views and needs are expressed and determined in proceedings involving children’s hearings in Glasgow. It explores the extent to which children can participate either directly or indirectly in legal hearings that affect their welfare. This is a comparative project, one that aims to compare the more "informal" Scottish system with the more formal setting of a New York State's Family Court.