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Lesley McAra

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Lesley McAra
FRSE CBE
EducationUniversity of Edinburgh
Known forResearch in criminology, poverty and social justice

Lesley McAra is Chair of Penology at the University of Edinburgh[1] She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh[2] and was appointed a CBE in the New Year's Honours List 2018, for services to Criminology.

Career

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McAra grew up in Hull as an expat Scot, and returned to Edinburgh to study at University.[3] McAra's areas of academic research include the sociology of punishment, the sociology of law and deviance, youth crime, juvenile justice, gender justice and comparative criminal justice.[4][5][6][7] She worked first at the Scottish Office doing research evaluating social work criminal justice services. She joined the University of Edinburgh as lecturer in criminology in 1995 and has been Dean of the School of Law, a member of the Centre for Law and Society and the Global Justice Academy and Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute. McAra is an associate at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR).[8] From 2019 to 2020, she served as President of the European Society of Criminology.[9]

She is co-director (with Professor Susan McVie) of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime,[10] a research programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation tracking the lives of young people in Scotland. It is a major longitudinal study of a single cohort of around 4,000 people who started secondary school in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1998[10][11] The research highlighted how policing impacts on young people and that the structures of the criminal justice system in Scotland punish the poor, preventing them from escaping hardship.[12][13][14] The research project has continued to track changes over time.[15]

References

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  1. ^ "Professor Lesley McAra | Edinburgh Law School". www.law.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  2. ^ "Professor Lesley McAra CBE FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 5 May 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Lesley McAra". The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  4. ^ McAra, Lesley (1998). Parole board decision making. Great Britain. Scottish Office. Central Research Unit. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. ISBN 0-11-495874-2. OCLC 39863511.
  5. ^ McAra, Lesley (2004). Truancy, school exclusion and substance misuse. University of Edinburgh. Centre for Law and Society. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Centre for Law and Society. ISBN 0-905893-04-2. OCLC 56923547.
  6. ^ Perspectives on punishment : the contours of control. Sarah Armstrong, Lesley McAra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-19-927876-8. OCLC 69593931.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ "Publications". | Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  8. ^ "SCCJR Prof Lesley McAra". SCCJR. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  9. ^ "The Executive Board of the European Society of Criminology". European Society of Criminology. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
  10. ^ a b "The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime". Nuffield Foundation. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  11. ^ McAra, Lesley; McVie, Susan (May 2010). "Youth crime and justice: Key messages from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime". Criminology & Criminal Justice. 10 (2): 179–209. doi:10.1177/1748895809360971. hdl:20.500.11820/6baf67fb-481f-4822-82ce-0167de1ec65a. ISSN 1748-8958. S2CID 143600871.
  12. ^ "Scottish justice system 'punishes poorer people'". BBC News. 13 November 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  13. ^ "Scotland's poorest 'most likely' to be victims of crime". Scottish Legal News. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  14. ^ "An uncomfortable truth- the strong link between poverty and crime". Transform Justice. 27 November 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  15. ^ satkins (4 November 2020). "Data Comic: How Crime has Changed in Scotland". | Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime. Retrieved 30 July 2021.