Anna Barker wins prize for excellence in policing research

Unviersity of Bradford Lecturer in Sociology, , was joint winner of this year’s British Society of Criminology Policing Network Early Career Prize which acknowledges and encourages excellence in policing research and scholarship. Anna was awarded the prize for her sole authored publication ‘Communicating Security? Policing Urban Spaces and Control Signals’ published in the journal of Urban Studies.

The winning publication draws on original empirical research conducted as part of Anna’s PhD. It makes a valuable contribution to the field of policing studies and, in particular, to theoretically-informed policy debates about the reassurance function of the police. The article harnesses insights gathered from focus group and interview data to illustrate the contrasting ways in which visible signifiers of crime and formal controls are received and interpreted by diverse audiences. It challenges traditional wisdom about the impact of criminal activities upon perceptions of safety and explores the unintended effects of formal controls that have implications for our understanding of local social order.

The prize was sponsored by Palgrave Macmillan.