Dr. Caroline Lanskey

Caroline Lanskey is a University Associate Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Director of the Justice and Society Research Centre at the Institute of Criminology. Her research draws on her interdisciplinary expertise in criminology, education (sociology and philosophy) and language, and explores the human and social dimensions of criminal justice involvement with a particular focus on processes of marginalisation and inclusion. Over the past 20 years she has developed an international research profile in the fields of youth justice including youth custody, prisoners' families and children, education and the arts in criminal justice.

With expertise in qualitative and quantitative methodologies she has been principal investigator of numerous research projects including a study of the education pathways of young people in the youth justice system; an evaluation of the Ormiston Families 'Breaking Barriers' programme for children of prisoners, a historical review of safeguarding children in the secure estate and the Families and Imprisonment Research (FAIR) Study (www.fair.crim.cam.ac.uk). She has co-led several other projects: ECOR, a European evaluation of restorative prison and probation programmes, a study of youth justice and rurality, and a study of young careleavers’ transitions into independent living. 

Her current research includes a comparative study of cumulative disadvantage in youth justice decision-making in England and Wales and the Netherlands funded by a Cambridge Humanities Research Grant and ‘Inspiring Futures’  an ESRC funded evaluation of the Arts in Criminal Justice settings.

Dr Lanskey teaches and supervises students at undergraduate, masters and PhD levels. She is the director of undergraduate teaching at the Institute and author and course organiser of the ‘Foundations of Criminology and Criminal Justice’ paper which is part of the joint Sociology/Criminology degree for students on the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos. In 2019 she received the Cambridge University Students Union student-led teaching award for academic support.