Professor Elizabeth Weaver
Social Policy
Area of Expertise
- Desistance from crime
- Re-entry and social reintegration
- User involvement and co-production
- The role of social cooperatives in supporting desistance and reintegration
- Prisons, Parole and Community based sentences
Prize And Awards
- HaSS Faculty Impact Prize for Outstanding Impact for Society
- Recipient
- 2019
- British Society of Criminology Book Prize 2016
- Recipient
- 2016
- Best Article Award 2014
- Recipient
- 2014
- Research Medal 2011 The Howard League for Penal Reform
- Recipient
- 2011
Publications
- Generative Justice : Exploring Its Reintegrative Possibilities and the Implications for Parole Reform
- Weaver Beth, Corcoran Mary, McNeill Fergus
- Parole Futures Rationalities, Institutions and Practices (2025) (2025)
- Envisioning social justice with criminalized young adults
- Weaver Beth, McCulloch Trish, Vaswani Nina
- The British Journal of Criminology Vol 64, pp. 675-692 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad052
- What does social justice look like and why is it so elusive for criminalised young adults?
- Weaver Beth, Vaswani Nina, McCulloch Trish
- Probation Quarterly, pp. 47-53 (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.54006/UFZQ6628
- Turning over a new leaf : desistance research for a new generation
- Weaver Beth, Graham Hannah, Maruna Shadd
- Oxford Handbook of Criminology (2023) (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/he/9780198860914.003.0006
- Coproducing justice in carceral contexts : user voice prison councils as a model of epistemic participation
- Weaver Beth
- Prison Service Journal Vol 262, pp. 18-26 (2022)
- Citizenship on probation : understanding the labour market exclusion of criminalised people in Scotland
- Weaver Beth, Jardine Cara
- Probation Journal Vol 69, pp. 296-317 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1177/02645505221105400
Teaching
My teaching interests include criminology, law and penal policy for criminal justice social work; penology and penal change; the dynamics of community supervision, rehabilitation and desistance; risk assessment and risk management in criminal justice.
Research Interests
My research activities are principally concerned with desistance from crime, the regulation and governance of the community supervision of people involved in the criminal justice system and the management of those classified as high risk.
I am particularly interested in the role of social relations in the onset, maintenance and conclusion of criminal careers, specifically how people's relationships with and to friends, families and communities shape and influence their offending trajectories and the implications of this for penal policy and practice. My doctoral research in this field has led to further projects examining the outcomes of mutual aid based group work and the role of through-the-prison-gate social cooperative structures of employment in processes of desistance and social reintegration, the latter of which is funded through the ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme.
Professional Activities
- Our Future Probation Service
- Participant
- 28/4/2025
- What do I Not Know? AI, Risk and Probation
- Organiser
- 12/3/2025
- AI in Social Work: A Useful Tool or Sinister Innovation
- Speaker
- 5/3/2025
- Strategic Themes: Applied AI Workshop
- Participant
- 17/1/2025
- Justice Leaders Workshop: AI and Risk Decision-Making
- Organiser
- 1/11/2024
- British Society of Criminology Conference 2024
- Organiser
- 10/7/2024
Projects
- The Health-Justice Nexus: Crime and Justice as Social Determinants of Health in Scotland
- Smith, Kat (Principal Investigator) Stewart, Ellen (Co-investigator) Weaver, Beth (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2029
- Penal Supervision in Comparative Context
- Weaver, Beth (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2026
- What do I not know? Working with uncertainty
- Weaver, Beth (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 31-Jan-2028
- Measuring Justice
- Weaver, Beth (Principal Investigator)
- 15-Jan-2018 - 14-Jan-2019
- EVALUATION OF THE WOMEN’S CENTRE PROGRAMME
- Weaver, Beth (Principal Investigator) Lightowler, Claire (Co-investigator)
- 14-Jan-2017 - 14-Jan-2019
- Reimagining Justice
- Weaver, Beth (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2017