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UCL experts advisory: knife crime

Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, will meet senior police officers today to discuss how to tackle a rise in knife crime. The meeting comes after two 17-year-olds were killed in knife attacks in Manchester and London at the weekend.

On Monday Theresa May denied there was a “direct correlation” between the rise in attacks and cuts to police numbers, but Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner, has suggested there is a link. The Labour MP Vernon Coaker, a former Home Office minister, has said the government should treat knife crime with the same urgency as terrorism, calling it a “national crisis”.

UCL has a number of leading experts on crime and policing who would be willing to give their insights to media. Profiles for these experts are linked to via their names below and you are free to contact them directly.
 

Professor Gloria Laycock (UCL Security & Crime Science)

Expertise: crime prevention, community safety, policing (limited availability)

Gloria is Jill Dando Professor of Crime Science and founding director of the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. She is an internationally renowned expert in crime prevention, working in the field for decades as part of the Home Office Research Unit. She later founded the Home Office Police Research Unit and acted as a consultant for the UN-affiliated crime prevention group HEUNI. She has worked as a consultant on policing and crime prevention in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa, the UAE and Europe.

Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 3272

Email: g.laycock@ucl.ac.uk

Tom Gash (UCL Security & Crime Science)

Expertise: crime, crime reduction

Tom is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. He is a leading thinker on crime and crime reduction and advised on crime policy in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the mid-2000s. His book, Criminal: The Truth About Why People Do Bad Things, was shortlisted for the Times Thought Book of the Year. He is a regular commentator for UK radio (BBC), print (FT, Guardian, Times) and television (BBC, Sky).

Tel: +44 (0)7748 961943

Email: tom@tomgash.com / t.gash@ucl.ac.uk

Professor Ben Bradford (UCL Security & Crime Science)

Expertise: policing, police legitimacy, community relations, stop and search

Ben is a Professor in the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science and Director of the UCL Institute for Global City Policing. His research interests include confidence and public trust in the police and how this compares to perceptions of police in other countries. He has worked with several police forces on a number of research projects, mainly concerned with improving police understanding of public opinion and priorities.

Tel: +44 (0)20 3018 3190

Email: ben.bradford@ucl.ac.uk

Dr Hervé Borrion (UCL Security & Crime Science)

Expertise: crime prevention, crime reduction, cybercrime, security and risk

Hervé is Associate Professor in the UCL Department of Security & Crime Science. He is also Deputy Director of the government-funded UCL Security Science Doctoral Training Centre, the international centre for PhD training in crime and security science. His main research interest lies in combining social science and technologies to assess and manage security risks.

Email only: h.borrion@ucl.ac.uk

For any additional information please get in touch with UCL Media Relations on +44 (0)20 3108 9485.