Projects per year
Personal profile
Personal Statement
My research interests focus on the sociology of punishment, particularly comparative and historical study of penal cultures and penal politics.
I joined the School of Social Work and Social Policy in 2021 as a Chancellor's Fellow, having previously been a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Stirling and been the Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Howard League Scotland. I completed my PhD in Criminology at the University of Edinburgh in 2018. During that time I was also a visiting Fulbright scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC Berkeley.
In 2021, my paper ‘Pastoral Penality’ received the best article prize in Theoretical Criminology, and my first article, 'Civilising Imprisonment', won the British Society of Criminology's best article prize for a paper produced by a new scholar. My recent book, The Politics of Punishment, is an examination of penality in Ireland and Scotland from 1970 until the end of the 1990s. It shines a light on their unfolding penal cultures, showing the startling differences in how and why people were punished. I am also co-editor (with Lynsey Black and Deirdre Healy) of a volume on the Histories of Punishment and Social Control in Ireland.
I am an international associate editorial board member at Punishment & Society, and on the editorial boards of The British Journal of Criminology, Law & Society Review, and the International Journal of Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy.
I am currently working on an ESRC New Investigator Grant funded study of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, "Mass Decarceration: A critical social history'. With Dr Colette Barry (University of Ulster) I am undertaking a history of Irish prison officers, funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme small grant fund.
In 2023, I was named as one of the BBC/AHRC’s New Generation Thinkers, who are ‘ten of the UK’s most promising arts and humanities early career researchers’.
I welcome PhD applications concerned with penal culture and penal politics, comparative criminology, and the social history of punishment.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 2 Active
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Penal Transformation in Ireland 1970-2010: The Prison Officers’ Perspective
1/06/23 → 30/05/25
Project: Research
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Mass decarceration: A critical social history ( New Investigator grant - transfer)
ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)
1/06/22 → 31/05/25
Project: Research
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‘There is more than one sort of prison, Captain’: a popular criminology of prisons and penal regimes in Star Wars
Atkinson, C. & Brangan, L., 27 Nov 2023, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Crime, Media, Culture. 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
Penality at the periphery: deficits, absences, and negation
Brangan, L., 29 Dec 2022, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. 39, 1, p. 94-113 27 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)6 Downloads (Pure)
Prizes
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British Society of Criminology, Brian Williams Prize
Brangan, Louise (Recipient), 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Activities
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British Society of Criminology Conference 2024
Louise Brangan (Participant)
Jul 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Organiser of major conference
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Oxford University All Souls Criminology Seminar
Louise Brangan (Speaker)
9 Nov 2023Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk