Ms Charlotte Knight

Job: Honorary Researcher

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Research group(s): Criminal Justice Research Group

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

T: N/A

E: chknight@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/hls

 

Personal profile

Dr Charlotte Knight retired from her full time post as principal lecturer in community and criminal justice in 2011.  Since then she has completed her PhD, published a book based on the thesis and is currently working on two European probation research projects with colleagues in the Division of Community and Criminal Justice (CCJ). She is also co-writing a book with a colleague from CCJ on LGBT people and Criminal Justice.

Research group affiliations

Key research outputs

  • Phd in Criminology (2012) Soft skills for hard work: an exploration of the efficacy of the emotional literacy of practitioners working within the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) with high-risk offenders.
  • The Criminal Justice Social Work Project (2012-2014), developed by Avans University, in the Netherlands, is a collaboration with other educational institutions and practice organisations in the Netherlands, France, Scotland, England and Wales, Rumania, Latvia and Norway and with the cooperation of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) to produce six teaching modules for initial education of future professionals and post initial education for probation officers.  At DMU we developed two of these modules on the legal and organizational framework for probation practice and on assessment.
  • STREAM project (Strategic Targeting of Recidivism through Evaluation and Monitoring) – a major European research project funded by the EU and involving criminal justice agencies, Ministries and universities in several European countries.  I have been involved in interviewing (by Skype) practitioners, policy makers and academics in six European countries, and in supporting and reviewing two pilot projects on evaluation in Italy and Warwickshire (UK).

Research interests/expertise

  • Emotional literacy in criminal justice
  • Diversity in criminal justice
  • Probation practice, probation training and curriculum development
  • Evaluation of probation practice in Europe

Qualifications

  • Dundee University: 1971; Certificate in Social Administration
  • Leicester University: 1973; Diploma in Social Work & CQSW
  • Loughborough University: 1994; MSc Criminology and Criminal Justice
  • Certificate in Research Supervision 1999
  • TDLB Assessors Award D32 & D33, Nov 2000
  • PhD Criminology, Criminal Justice. De Montfort University, December 2012

Membership of external committees

  • Member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Community Justice

Membership of professional associations and societies

  • National Association of Probation Officers (since 1973)
  • Howard League for Criminal Justice (since 1986)
  • British Society of Criminology (since 1994)

Case studies

Students on the Probation Qualifying programme at DMU have cited Charlotte’s work on emotional literacy and she has presented papers on this subject, including at an international audience at a conference on the CJSW project at Avans University, The Netherlands in February 2014.