Dr Claire Fitzpatrick

Claire is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Lancaster University Law School, and the Youth Justice Lead for the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research. She is also a Care-Leaver, and the Principal Investigator on the ‘Disrupting the Routes between Care and Custody’ project. Claire has a long-standing interest in exploring the link between experiences of care and later involvement in the youth and criminal justice system. She is committed to research that makes a difference to real world policy and practice.
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Dr Katie Hunter

Katie is a Research Associate at Lancaster University Law School. Katie completed her ESRC-funded PhD research at the University of Liverpool and was awarded her doctorate in June 2019. Her PhD research focused on the disproportionate involvement of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) children and looked after children in the youth justice system in England and Wales. Principally, her research was concerned with the structural factors which lead to these two groups of children being overrepresented in the juvenile secure estate.
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Dr Julie Shaw

Julie is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. Her PhD research explored the factors that contribute to children and young people in residential children’s homes coming to the attention of the youth justice system. Subsequent research has included multi-agency responses to the criminalisation and exploitation of looked after children. Julie is a qualified probation officer, who previously worked for both a Youth Offending Service and with adults under community and custodial sentences.
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Dr Jo Staines

Jo is a Senior Lecturer in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. Jo has conducted research on the use of foster care for young people on remand, adolescent foster care, supported housing for young people involved in offending behaviour, and the use of restorative justice within the secure estate. Jo was appointed to the Prison Reform Trust’s independent review of the over-representation of looked after children in the youth justice system, In Care, Out of Trouble (2016), and wrote the accompanying literature review.
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Project Advisors

Serving as advisors to the project are Professor Brian Francis (Lancaster University) and Dr Jude Towers (Liverpool John Moores University) who will provide the team with expert advice on our data scoping exercise.
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