Dr Dennis Gough
Biography
From 2019, I have resumed my role as Senior Lecturer in Penology at the Institutue of Criminal Justice Studies at the ºÚÁϳԹÏ. I am currently the course leader for the Professional Doctorate in Criminal Justice (DCRIMJ). See . My Doctoral thesis is entitled "New Actors in Corrections " and was an empirical study into both the penal voluntary sector in England and Wales and ex- offender peer mentor volunteers. I am currently supervising doctoral students in the fields of female desistance from criminality, female peer mentoring in prison and the place and use of theory in contemporary criminology teaching.
My current teaching interests are in the broad areas of penology and prisons, restorative justice, community justice and the rehabilitation of offenders. In addition I am involved in the teaching of aspects of criminology with University students working alongside learners currently in prison. From 2019, I have been invited to join the newly formed European Society of Criminology ‘Working Group of Restorative Justice’. For more information see .
For the previous 7 years (2012-2019) I acted as Director of Community Justice having leadership responsibility for the ºÚÁϳԹÏ's work to provide the educational provision to the professional qualification of probation officers in England and Wales. I designed the ºÚÁϳԹÏ's approach to this work and wrote the successful bid to secure MOJ contracts in London, the South East region, the South West region, and Wales Probation divisions.
Research interests
- The Probation Service and community punishment
- Implementing Restorative Justice approaches to entrenched problems
- Risk Management, Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements and the management of dangerous offenders
- The Voluntary Sector in Probation and Prisons
- Ex-service users as peer mentors
- The treatment and rehabilitation of offenders
International Links
In September 2017 I gave a paper at the 3rd World Congress on Probation in Tokyo, Japan on my doctoral research on the use of ex-service users as probation volunteers.
I have developed important links with the Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea, following three successful visiting scholars at the Institute of Criminal Justice. Mr Keung Song Roh visited in 2008 and studied England and Wales offender satellite tacking pilots. Mr Heung Soeb Lee visited in 2010 to research England and Wales approach to public protection including the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA). In 2009, with Professor Mike Nash, I attended an International Seminar in Seoul to mark the 20 year anniversary of Probation and Parole in South Korea.
In 2017 I was invited by HMPPS to give advice on strategic approaches to probation officer education and training to a delegation of senior policy advisors from Kazakhstan. My work was published in a governmental strategy document to develop a professional probation service in this jurisdiction.
Teaching responsibilities
I am module coordinator for a Level 5 programme entitled Prisons and Penology. I also teach across the curriculum in areas such as desistance from crime, the privatisation and marketisation of criminal justice, restorative justice and innovative justice reform and criminological theory .