Dr Dominic Aitken
Dominic Aitken joined Edinburgh Law School in 2025 as a Lecturer in Criminal Law and Evidence, having previously worked at the Universities of Strathclyde (2022–25), Bath (2020–22) and Roehampton (2018–20).
Dominic’s teaching and research interests range across criminal law and evidence, criminological theory, the sociology of punishment, and the history and politics of criminal justice institutions. He has published work on prison suicide investigations in England and Wales (Punishment & Society) and on staff in UK immigration removal centres (The British Journal of Criminology). He is currently writing a book about expertise in criminal justice, which examines the role of experts in the creation of law, the operation of law, and the implementation of law.
In 2019, Dominic completed his DPhil at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, supported by a competitive ESRC 1+3 Studentship. Prior to his DPhil, he did an MSc in Criminology & Criminal Justice (Distinction) at the University of Oxford, receiving the Roger Hood Prize for the top graduate. In 2014, he was awarded the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize for the most distinguished undergraduate in Law at the University of Edinburgh.