Professor Laura Piacentini

Social Policy

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Personal statement

Laura Piacentini is an award-winning Professor of Criminology at the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

A Russian speaker, Laura was the first Westerner to conduct empirical and theoretical research in post-USSR prisons. Her doctorate, funded by the UK research council, the ESRC, was the first PhD to examine incarceration in contemporary Russia, and she has been researching and publishing on this subject for nearly thirty years. Trained as a sociologist, she works across disciplines including human geography, political science, law, and criminology, and has been Co-Investigator or Principal Investigator on several studies of post-Soviet penal culture. Alongside Professor Slade, she led the ESRC-funded project “In the Gulag’s Shadow: Producing, Consuming and Perceiving Prisons in the Former USSR,” which explores Russian penal culture from both empirical and theoretical perspectives.

She managed the project through the Covid pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In 2014, Laura, alongside Professor Susan McVie from Edinburgh University's Law School, was the first woman Criminologist in Scotland to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was also selected as a Fellow of “AcademiaNet,” a network for leading European women scholars established during Angela Merkel’s chancellorship.

In 2016, she co-founded the Criminal and Social Justice research cluster at Strathclyde with Professor Beth Weaver and led the University’s partnership with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, where she continues to serve as Associate Director.

From 2015 to 2020, Laura was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Criminology & Criminal Justice.

Her latest book, published by Routledge in April 2022, is titled The Virtual Reality of Imprisonment in Russia: “Preparing Myself for Prison in a Contested Human Rights Landscape”, is co-authored with Dr Elena Katz (Oxford and Helsinki). It is the first book in the world to focus on how online prison-adjacent communities practice rights consciousness.

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Area of Expertise

  • Global Criminology
  • Sociology and Social Theory
  • Prisons in the former Soviet Union
  • International prisons and penal reform
  • Prison ethnography and qualitative research methods
  • Human rights in prisons

Prize And Awards

Nomination, Book of the Year, British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies
Recipient
2024
Best Documentary Film 2021, Christian Film Festival USA for The Long Way Back
Recipient
1/11/2021
Best Educational Film at the Christian Film Festival for The Long Way Back
Recipient
1/11/2021
Article of The Year, 2015 for the international journal, 'Theoretical Criminology'
Recipient
15/2/2016
Book of the Year, 2013
Recipient
12/11/2013
Book of the Year, 2005
Recipient
7/7/2005

More prizes and awards

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Teaching

Laura has taught Criminology for nearly thirty years, developing expertise across a wide range of subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervising numerous postgraduate students.

Together with Professor Beth Weaver, she established Criminology as a subject within the School of Social Work and Social Policy and continues to play a key role in its development, including designing much of the curriculum integrated across social policy modules.

In January 2022, the MSc in Criminology and Social Policy was launched, delivered by a team with expertise in Criminology, Social Work, and Social Policy.

Laura also supervises PhD students in Criminology, and applications for doctoral research in these areas are welcomed.

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Research Interests

Research

Laura’s work is recognised, through her publications, impact, major grant income, and academic awards, as world leading. She is an award-winning, internationally active criminologist whose research on contemporary Russian imprisonment has been ongoing since 1995. She has lived and conducted research in numerous prisons across Russia and is a trained Russian speaker.

Her work is strongly multidisciplinary, involving collaboration and leadership across international teams in sociology, Russian area studies, history, human rights, and political science. She is committed to radical, feminist, creative, and theoretically informed research methods.

Research Grants

Laura has served as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I) on a variety of grants. Her completed and ongoing projects include several major ESRC-funded studies on Russian prisons.

ESRC

  • In the Gulag’s Shadow: Producing, Consuming and Perceiving Prisons in the Former USSR (2018–2023)
    Principal Investigator (£735k). This was the first study of its kind in global criminology, examining penal culture across former Soviet states.
    Team: Dr Gavin Slade (Lead Co-I, Nazarbayev University); Professor Elena Omelchenko (Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg); Professor Alexei Trochev (Nazarbayev University).
  • Regulating Justice: The Dynamics of Compliance and Breach in Criminal Justice Social Work in Scotland (2012–2014, £206k)
    Co-I, with Dr Monica Barry (PI, Law) and Dr Beth Weaver (Co-I, Social Work and Social Policy).
  • Women in the Russian Penal System: The Role of Distance in the Theory and Practice of Imprisonment in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia (2006–2010, £253k)
    Co-I, with Professor Judith Pallot (PI) and Dr Dominique Moran (Co-I, University of Birmingham).
  • Work to Live: The Function of Prison Labour in Russian Prisons (1997–2001, £45k)
    Principal Investigator (ESRC).

AHRC

  • The Right to Health in Brazilian and Scottish Prisons (2018–2020, £180k)
    Co-I, with Professor Sally Haw (PI).

Leverhulme Trust

  • Towards a Sociology of Rights Consciousness Among Russian Prisoners (£45k)
    Principal Investigator.

Royal Society of Edinburgh

University of Strathclyde / University of Waterloo

  • Covid Justice – Penal Justice? (2022–2024, £10,000)
    With Professor Sarah Burton, Socio-Legal Studies, University of Waterloo.

Knowledge Exchange

Laura has advised the United Nations and various NGOs on topics including forced labour in prisons (1998), Russian political prisoners (2000-2005), and asylum seekers (2008). She has also provided expertise to the Scottish Parliament on prison rehabilitation (2000).

She has presented papers at institutions such as Nur-Sultan University (Qazaqstan), Harvard University, the Higher Education Institute of Smolensk, and Moscow State University. She has taught at Russian prison-service training colleges, Russian police colleges, and at the Central European University, Budapest.

Recent Knowledge Exchange

  • Criminal Justice Leaders Network with Professors Lesley McAra, Michele Burman and Susan McVie with support from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (December 2025)
  • “Farmers Have No Freedom” — Uzbek Forum Report on Land, Labour and Farmers’ Rights (June 2025)
    Advisors: Darren McGuire, Laura Piacentini, Michael Combe
    Areas: Work, Employment & Organisation; Social Policy; Law
    Commissioned by: Uzbek Forum for Human Rights (Germany)
    Nature of Work: Review and expert appraisal of the pre-launch report
    Scope: International

 

Professional Activities

"Farmers Have No Freedom” (Uzbek Forum report on land, labour and farmers rights)
Advisor
1/6/2025
Plenary Speaker
Participant
10/7/2024
Criminal Justice in Crisis
Participant
24/6/2024
Coordinators: Gavin Slade (Nazarbayev University), Matthew Light (University of Toronto), Anne-Marie Singh (Toronto Metropolitan University), Kaja Gadowska (Jagelielonian University) and Laura Piacentini (University of Strathclyde)
Participant
18/4/2024
Situating the ‘Global East’ in Southernizing and Decolonizing Movements in Socio-Legal Studies
Participant
18/4/2024
"Situating the ‘Global East’ in Southernizing and Decolonizing Movements in Socio-Legal Studies"
Organiser
17/4/2024

More professional activities

Projects

The Prison Blueprint: How Colonial Incarceration Forged Modern Racial Injustice
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator) Belton, Lloyd (CoPI) Moshfeghi, Yashar (Co-investigator) Izaguirre, Yaimara (Co-investigator) Thompson-Brown, Beverley (Co-investigator) Barcia, Manuel (Researcher) Bardes, John (Researcher) Basques, Messias (Researcher) GONZALEZ ARANA, Roberto (Researcher) Guyatt, Nicholas (Researcher) Gyollai, Daniel (Researcher) Jardine, Cara (Researcher) Mantilla Morales, Valeria Sofia (Researcher) Moss, Kellie (Researcher) Naranjo, Consuelo (Researcher) Piacentini, Laura (Researcher) Sabala, Vanesa (Researcher) Sarmiento Ramirez, Ismael (Researcher) Bhopal, Aneel Singh (Fellow) Surwillo, Lisa (Researcher) Weaver, Beth (Researcher)
This flagship project encompasses various initiatives to examine the historical origins of systemic racism and class discrimination in contemporary criminal justice systems by bringing together historians, computer scientists specialising in AI, criminologists, philosophers, and justice policy experts. Led by Dr Jesús Sanjurjo (University of Strathclyde) and Dr Lloyd Belton (University of Glasgow), our research is centred on the recent unearthing of a unique historical collection: Havana's Royal Prison Logbooks.

Spanning a century (1837-1937), these extraordinary manuscripts from one of the Atlantic's largest colonial prisons contain detailed records of thousands of men, women, and children, both free and enslaved. By connecting this rich historical data with contemporary policy, we aim to directly inform current debates on prison reform and the enduring legacies of racial injustice. The initiative is supported by major grants from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, and Strathclyde’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Science.

The project encompasses the following research initiatives:

1. 'Using AI for Tracking Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems', co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, and Dr Belton, 1/02/25 → 31/07/25, funded by a University of Strathclyde's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, £2,000.00.

2. 'Havana’s Royal Prison Logbooks (1836-1898): Digitisation, Preservation and Dissemination', co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, and Dr Belton, 1/10/25 → Ongoing, funded by the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme (pilot), £15,000.00, https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP1676

3. 'To contain the diffusion of pernicious ideas. The systematic imprisonment of Black sailors in Cuba and the United States, 1830-1850' ['Para contener la difusión de ideas perniciosas: Encarcelamiento sistemático de marineros negros en Cuba y Estados Unidos, 1830-1850'], co-led by Dr Belton and Dr Sanjurjo, in partnership with Dr John Bardes, 1/05/25 → Ongoing, internally funded.

4. 'Using AI to Track Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems', ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, and Dr Belton in partnership with Beverley Thompson-Brown OBE, 01/11/25 → Ongoing, funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) Award, £14,769.96.

5. 'Historical Prison Systems in The Atlantic World and Their Impact on the Construction of Contemporary Penitentiary Models', I-LINK Programme of the CSIC and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Scheme, led by Prof Consuelo Naranjo. Project Dates TBC, Outcome of the Funding Application TBC.
01-Jan-2025
COVID-19 Justice as Penal Justice: Examining the Impacts of the Pandemic on Prisons in Canada and Scotland
Piacentini, Laura (Principal Investigator)
I am co-investigating (with Dr Sarah Turnbull of the University of Waterloo) the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on prisons in Canada and Scotland, focusing specifically on issues of systemic inequalities. This project, COVID-19 Justice as Penal Justice: Examining the Impacts of the Pandemic on Prisons in Canada and Scotland, is funded by a Strathclyde and Waterloo Joint Transatlantic Partnership Award.
01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2023
In the Gulag's Shadow: Producing, Consuming and Perceiving Prisons in the Former Soviet Union
Piacentini, Laura (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2018 - 01-Jan-2023
In the Gulag's Shadow: Producing, Consuming and Perceiving Prisons in the Former USSR
Piacentini, Laura (Principal Investigator) Slade, Gavin (Principal Investigator) Olmenchenko, Elena (Co-investigator) Trochev, Alexei (Co-investigator)
This a major (circa £735k), new comparative study of two of the largest penal systems of the former Soviet Union: Russia and Kazakhstan. It advances knowledge of one of the most extraordinary systems of penal power, the Gulag, and seeks to understand it's legacies today in policy, in practice and in feelings and attitudes to punishment in this udner-researched world region.
01-Jan-2018 - 01-Jan-2021
Right to Health in Prison AHRC-MRC Global Public Health Partnership Call Oct 2017
Piacentini, Laura (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2018 - 31-Jan-2019
A Sociology of Rights Consciousness amongst Prisoners in Russia
Piacentini, Laura (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2015 - 28-Jan-2017

More projects

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Contact

Professor Laura Piacentini
Social Policy

Email: laura.piacentini@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted