Katherine Williams

Senior Lecturer in Criminology
LLM Cantab, LLB Wales Photograph of Katherine Williams.

Contact

Email: khw@aber.ac.uk
Office: B38
Phone: 01970 622739

Teaching Areas

I lecture in a number of undergraduate modules in criminology and criminal justice such as Elements of Criminology and Crime Control and Prevention to first years and Youth Crime and Youth Justice, Criminal Justice, Criminology of Human Rights Violations, Psychology and Crime and Critical Criminology to second and third years.  I also teach Research Skills to both undergraduates and postgraduates both within the Department and wider University schemes. 

Postgraduate supervision

I have supervised both MPhil and PhD students and am happy to speak with potential MPhil and PhD students who are interested in projects which fall within my research interests and/or within areas that I teach.

My current PhD students are researching:

The Management of Sex Offenders – an analysis and evaluation of present police practice.

Terrorism, Human Rights and Asylum Seekers since 9/11.

An ethnographic study of one community to provide local crime control agencies with a better understanding of the underlying problems.

Research

I have special interests in the relationship between psychology, criminal law (and its enforcement) and rule breaking; control of internet crime, particularly child pornography; governance and partnership working; and the interaction between theory and policy in the area of criminal.

I am now Deputy Director of the newly formed Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice (WCCSJ) which brings together criminologists working in seven universities in Wales to deliver a significant contribution to criminal and social justice in Wales altering the research landscape and positively affecting the lives of those in Wales and beyond.  

Current Research Activities

I was trained as a lawyer but the focus of my research and my first love is the study of Criminology and Criminal Justice.  The research for my Textbook on Criminology, now in its sixth edition, has facilitated a broad interdisciplinary understanding of this subject.

Wishing to invest in the local community I have, over the years, been involved with research activities associated with a number of local crime control agencies.  Along with Alan Clarke and Sarah Wydall, I am recently completed two projects of this type: one to evaluate Youth Intervention Programmes as used by the local Youth Offending Team (funded by the Welsh Assembly Government); another is a scoping exercise to explore the factors that lead to school exclusion exploring policies for their management or avoidance (funded by the Welsh Assembly Government); and am involved in another two: one to supervise a postgraduate ethnographic study of one community to provide local crime control agencies with a better understanding of the underlying problems and advise on methods which might help to improve the social environment and quality of life for its inhabitants (funded by UWA) and the second is an evaluation of local multi-agency working with children and young people who are experiencing the effects of domestic abuse (funded by the Welsh Assembly Government).

I have also been studying the way in which, over time, the use of restorative justice has been altered to correspond more closely with the ethos of the criminal justice service employing it; I am now also looking at possible use in cases of domestic violence (with Alan Clarke and Sarah Wydall).

In the past seven years my work has moved more centrally into the area of community safety and risk society, particularly with my studies of child safety.  I have explored child pornography from a number of different standpoints: the complex nexus between public opinion and legal and political power in child pornography; questioning the effectiveness of the present provisions and enforcement mechanisms in protecting children; deconstruction of societal inconsistencies in simultaneously protecting and marketing children’s innocence and exploring new means of control built on honesty and integrity; criminological explanations for viewing of child pornography over the internet.  More recently I have been involved in considering more practical ways of impeding access to child pornography so hopefully protecting children.

I am also interested in: the theoretical analysis of whether the aim of the State to deliver a 'safer communities' policy is compatible with deconstruction of both individual and group concepts of 'self' in application to young people; a deconstruction of ‘harm’ and ‘victimisation’ questioning whether legal focus on blame is destructive rather than constructive; and finally, I have begun to assess the local use of anti-social behaviour orders and to juxtapose their use against a consideration of young people and their place in a ‘safer community’.    

Past Research Projects

Major research studies include:

  • provision of free legal advice in Liverpool;
  • an evaluation of the introduction of CCTV into Aberystwyth and Cardigan, also integrating police science and governance along with issues concerning the use of and regulation of space and media and popular culture to explore the claimed and real effects of the use of cameras in crime control in public areas;
  • devolution and human rights – evaluation of the National Assembly and its recognition of the European Convention on Human Rights through its work on education;
  • an evaluation of what works in the rural setting, supervision of a PhD;
  • introduction of restorative justice to a rural constabulary;
  • evaluation of the Computer Misuse Act 1990;
  • evaluation of local YIPs;
  • a study of school exclusion;
  • an evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions to tackle anti-social behaviour;
  • an evaluation of NOMS Cymru Women's turnaround project in North Wales.

Staff Publications

Williams, K.S. (2010) 'State Crime' found in F.Brookman, M.Maguire, H.Pierpoint and T Bennett Handbook on Crime Cullompton: Willan Publishing (pages 466-491)

Williams, K.S. (2009) 'Transnational Developments in Internet Crime' found in Y. Jewkes and M. Yar Handbook of Internet Crime Cullompton: Willan Publishing (pages 466-491)

Williams, K.S. (2008) Textbook on Criminology (6th edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press

Williams, K.S. (2008) 'Using Tittle's Control Balance Theory to Understand Computer Crime and Deviance' International Review of Law, Computers and Technology 22(1 and 2): 145-155

Williams, K.S. (2006) 'On-Line Anonymity, Deindividuation and Freedom of Expression and Privacy' Penn State Law Review, 106(3): 687-701

Williams, K.S. (2005) 'Facilitating Safer Choices: Use of Warnings to Dissuade Viewing of Pornography on the Internet' Child Abuse Review 14: 415-429

Williams, K.S. (2004) ‘Child Pornography Law: Does it Protect Children?’ Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 26(3): 245-261

Williams, K. S. (2003) ‘Child Pornography and Regulation of the Internet in the United Kingdom : The Impact on Fundamental Rights and International Relations’  in Brandeis Law Review 41(3): 463-505

Williams, K.S. and Rainey, B. (2002) ‘Language, Education and the European Convention on Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century’ in Legal Studies 22 (4): 625-650.

Sherlock, A., Williams, K. S., and Rainey, B. (2002) ‘Special Education Needs in Wales’  in Wales Law Journal 3(1) 17-34

Williams, K. S. and Carr, I. (2002) ‘Crime, Risk and Computers’ Electronic Communication aw Review 23-53

Williams, K. S. and Williams, J. (2001). ‘Vulnerable Adults - Confidentiality and Inter-disciplinary Working’ Found in J. Tingle, A. Garwood-Gowers and T. Lewis (Eds) Healthcare Law: The Impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 , Harlow: Pearson Education.

Williams, K.S. and Johnstone, C. (2000) 'The Politics of the Selective Gaze: Closed Circuit Television and the Policing of Public Space'  (2000) Crime, Law and Social Change , 30: 1-28.

Editorial Board
Journal of Civil Liberties. The website for the journal is: http://lsu.unn.ac.uk/lsupg.asp?pageID=8

Journal of Information and Communications Technology Law.