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Qualifications

BA (Hons) York., PhD Durham

Course development and teaching

Chairing the development and production of a new third level criminology course Crime and justice (DD301) has been followed by two years as chair in presentation since 2009. Earlier in my Open University career which began in 2002, I was involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Criminology and Social Policy including Community safety, crime prevention and social control (D863) and Crime order and social control (D315).

Research interests

My research interests include gender and the police, violence and integrity and ethics in the criminal justice system. I’m also interested in ethnographic research methods, danger, fear and situations where privileged access leads to dilemmas for researchers. In the past I have published articles on police informers and the way they are regulated and the effect of this upon rights and justice. More recently I’ve completed a book about research methods in criminology. My other recent research projects have included studying women bouncers and violence in the context of social control of the night time economy (ESRC Grant reference: RES-000-23-0384-A). This project was called Women on the Door: Female Bouncers in the New Night-time Economy carried out with Professor Dick Hobbs.

Another project that was awarded ESRC funding was about police, public services and consumer culture (ESRC Grant reference RES-143-25-0008). This was called Creating Citizen-Consumers: Changing Relationships and Identifications and was carried out with colleagues at the Open University.

I am currently conducting an extensive survey of police officers' corrupt behaviour and beliefs about their actions and those of their colleagues. I am also working on a comparative study of the way homicides are reported and recorded in the UK and the US.

I am Director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR).

Recent publications

A selection of my research publications can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

Westmarland, L. (2011) Researching Crime and Justice: Tales from the Field. London: Routledge.

Westmarland, Louise (2010). Dodgy customers? Can the police ever trust the public? Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 4(3), pp. 291-297.

Clarke, J, Newman,J, Smith, N, Vidler, E and Westmarland, L (2007) Creating Citizen-consumers: Changing Publics and Changing Public Services. Sage: London

Hobbs, D, O'Brien, K, and Westmarland, L. (2007) Connecting the Gendered Door: women, violence and doorwork. British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 21-38

O'Brien, K., Hobbs, D. and Westmarland, L., (2007) 'Negotiating Violence and Gender: Security and the Night Time Economy in the UK', in Body-Gendrot, S and Spierenburg, P., (eds ) Cultures of Violence in Europe: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Springer Publishing .

 Westmarland, L. (2005) Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence, Policing and Society, vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 145-165

Westmarland, L. (2003) 'Policing Integrity: Britain's Thin Blue Line' in Klockars,C.B., Haberfeld,M. and Kutjnak Ivkovich, S. The Contours of Police Integrity, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage

Westmarland, L. (2002) 'Challenges of Policing London: A Conversation with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens', Police Practice and Research. An International Journal, vol.3, no.3, pp.247-260.

Westmarland, L. (2001) Gender and Policing. Sex, Power and Police Culture, Devon, Willan.

Westmarland, L. (2001) 'Blowing the whistle on police violence: ethics, research and ethnography', British Journal of Criminology, vol.41, no.2, pp.523-35.

Westmarland, L. (2000) 'Taking the flak: operational policing, fear and violence' in Lee-Treweek, G. and Linkogle, S. Danger in the Field: Risk and Ethics in Social Research, London, Routledge.

Westmarland, L. (2000) 'Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?' Ethical Human Services and Sciences, vol.2, no.3, pp.193-202.

Westmarland, L. and Yearley, S. (2000) 'Scientific selection and the CID', Police Research and Management, vol.4, no.4.

Westmarland, L. (1999) 'Women Managing in the Police', Police Research and Management, vol.3, no.3.

A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

Last updated: 13 July 2012