Dr Andreas Aresti
I am a senior lecturer in criminology in the School of Social Sciences. My PhD research explored former male prisoners' experiences of self-change, focusing on 'what it is like to live with the ex-offender status' & and how this is negotiated in everyday life, when considering both the negative & and positive implications attached to the term. Post PhD, my research has focussed on prisoner resettlement, desistance from crime, and the transformational potential higher education has on prisoners. Some of this research has involved me working as a research consultant for a variety of voluntary sector organisations working in the field of criminal justice.
Whilst I am based in criminology, my academic background is psychology i.e. BSc Psychology and MSc Cognitive Neuropsychology, and my PhD research was Criminology/social psychology in nature.
Current projects include:
Convict Criminology
www.convictcriminology.org
I was one of the three founder memebrs of British Convict Criminology which officially formed in July 2011. I played a leading role in the development of this academic group in the UK and continue to develop the CC perspective, an emerging theoretical perspective (originating in the US) led by ex-convict/non convict academics under the banner of Convict Criminology at Westminster. The group takes a critical perspective to existing criminal justice issues. Our work challenges current (mis)representations of crime, prisons and former convicts.
This work includes collaborative research, policy work & and mentoring prisoners enaging in HE (criminology or its cognate disciplines) amongst other things. Primarily the focus of our projects are prisoner education and the role it can play in self-change/reducing re-offending, and more broadly speaking, the relationship between education and desistance from crime. Along wth my colleague we run three prisoner to university pipeline projects at Prisons in England and have helped others both in the UK and overseas to start similar projetcs.