Prof. Yvonne Jewkes

Professor of Criminology

University of Bath

Biography

Yvonne Jewkes studied for her PhD at the Prisons Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Prof Alison Liebling. She has been Professor of Criminology since 2007 (and at the University of Bath since Sept 2018). She has held research grants totalling approximately £1.5million, including two funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and will shortly be starting work on a £1.2m project looking at prison health and ‘healthy prisons’, led by Prof Thomas Ugelvik at the University of Oslo. She is Founder and Editor-in-Chief (with Profs Ben Crewe and Thomas Ugelvik) of the new journal Incarceration: An International Journal of Imprisonment, Detention and Coercive Confinement (launches April 2020).

Prof Jewkes’ main research interests are prison architecture, design and technology (ADT) and how they can assist in rehabilitating offenders, enhancing prisoners’ quality of life and wellbeing, reducing trauma, increasing perceptions of penal legitimacy, encouraging compliance with the regime, improving prisoner-staff relations, and making prison staff feel like a professionalised and valued workforce. Her personal website on this is www.prisonarchitecturedesign.com

She has undertaken a significant programme of work on: the rehabilitative potential of prisons (with Dr Kate Gooch, University of Bath); the commissioning, planning and design of prisons in England and Wales, Scotland, Norway and Denark, and the ‘lived experience’ of prison architecture for prisoners, prison staff, prison visitors, neighbours and other stakeholder groups in those jurisdictions (with Prof Dominique Moran, University of Birmingham); and the incorporation of Trauma-Informed Care and Practice (TICP) into prison planning and design in the UK and Republic of Ireland (with Dr Mel Jordan, University of Nottingham and Dr Serena Wright, Royal Holloway).

In addition to this empirical research, she has done extensive consultancy and advisory work on prison planning and design, including:

• Consultant to Irish Prison Service (IPS) as member of Quality Assessment Panel on Design & Build team for new women’s prison at Limerick; and on prison modernisation and expansion programmes including refurbishments of the Dóchas Centre, Wheatfield and Clover Hill prisons in Dublin and Limerick men’s prison.
• Guest of New Zealand Department of Corrections, leading workshops and presentations with Deputy Chief Executive and senior managers, plus visit to Auckland East maximum-security prison (on which she served on the Design & Build team in 2013-2015).
• Advisor to NZ Dept of Corrections on design of adult male medium-high security prison in Waikeria.
• Consultant to FMSA Architects, Melbourne, on Dame Phyllis Frost Centre women’s prison, Victoria.
• Consultant to UK Ministry of Justice Prison Estates Transformation Programme (PETP) Board and their appointed architects Bryden Wood on design planning for new men’s prisons in England & Wales.
• Advisor to UK National Offender Management Service (NOMS) on interior design of HMP Berwyn, a 2106-bed prison in Wrexham, North Wales, opened Feb 2017.
• Advisor to Executive Governors of six ’Early Adopter’ reform prisons in England & Wales, 2017.
• Advisor to Corrections Victoria Youth Justice Review Board on planned juvenile facilities in wake of riots at Parkville Youth Justice Centre; and submitted written evidence to Parliamentary Inquiry into Youth Justice Centres in Victoria, Feb 2017.
• Advisor to Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) on their design for new women’s prison in Belfast.
• Advisor to International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, on prison design in developing nations.
• Consultant to Next Step Partners consortium, led by Fletcher Construction, awarded PPP contract to design and build new Auckland East maximum-security prison for adult males, New Zealand, 2013-15.
• Over this period, she has conducted research in prisons in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Catalonia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.