Dr Dominic Aitken

Personal statement

I joined the University of Strathclyde as a Lecturer in Criminal Law in August 2022, having previously been a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bath (2020–22) and an Associate Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Roehampton (2018–20). At Strathclyde Law School, I teach undergraduate classes on criminal law, criminology and evidence, and convene a postgraduate module on the sociology of punishment.

My research is broadly concerned with the history and politics of criminal justice and migration control, and draws on ideas from both law and the social sciences. My main focus to date has been on coercive institutions such as prisons and immigration removal centres (IRCs), and my writing on these areas has been been published in Punishment & Society and The British Journal of Criminology, respectively.

In 2019, I completed my DPhil at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, researching responses to deaths in custody. My doctorate was supported by a competitive ESRC 1+3 Studentship, and during my postgraduate studies I taught at the Universities of Oxford, Oxford Brookes and Reading.

Prior to my DPhil, I did an MSc in Criminology & Criminal Justice (Distinction) at the University of Oxford, receiving the Roger Hood Prize for the top graduate. In 2014, I was awarded the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize for the most distinguished undergraduate in Law at the University of Edinburgh.