Dr Nicholas Flynn

Before pursuing an academic career, Nick worked as a researcher and as a freelance research consultant within the area of criminal justice including as the deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust between 1994 and 2000, Most recently, Nick's research has focused on crime and place, processes of criminal desistance, imprisonment, public punitiveness and probation in European contexts.

Featured publications

Flynn, N. (2014) 'Advancing emotionally intelligent justice within public life and popular culture', Theoretical Criminology (18)3: 354-370.

Scott, D. and Flynn, N. (2014) Prisons and Punishment: The essentials. London: Sage.

Flynn, N. (2012) Criminal Behaviour in Context: Space, place and desistance from crime. London: Routledge.

Flynn, N. (1998) Introduction to Prisons and Imprisonment. Winchester: Waterside Press.

• Criminology Research Group

Click here for a full lisiting of Nick Flynn's publications and outputs.

• Prisons and punishment
• Crime and place
• Crime and unemployment
• Criminal desistance
• Multi-agency working and partnership
• Rehabilitation policy and practice
• Education in prisons

Criminology and Sociology

• BA
• MA
• PhD
• Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education

BA

• Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Society
• Crime in Late Modernity
• Crime Risk and Community Safety
• Introduction to Criminology
• Theory, Policy and Practice
• Restorative Justice
• Critical Criminology

PGCert. CJM

• Managing Partnerships and Multi-agency Working

MA

• Rehabilitation and Reintegration

• Member of British Society of Criminology

Strategic Targeting of Recidivism through Evaluation and Monitoring (STREAM). European Commission and National Offender Management Service. Start date: January 2013. Duration: 24 months. Includes research and development of evaluation guidance and evaluation of the implementation of the European Probation Rules (EPR).

Steps 2 Resettlement. European Commission and NOMS.Development of resettlement and aftercare practices informing the transfer of foreign national prisoners.

• Strategic Targetting of Recidivism Through Evaluation and Monitoring (STREAM) workshop 2014, The Hague, The Netherlands.
• Emotion, Morality and Public Punitiveness: US, UK and Nordic issues of comparison and contrast, Laurea University, Helsinki, Finland, 2013.
• Grass Roots of Civic Participation, an Unlevel Playing Field, International Week 2011, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vantaa, Finland
• Social Exclusion and Re-offending, International Week 2010, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vantaa, Finland
• Place and Criminal Desistance: a life course perspective, British Society of Criminology Conference, University of Huddersfield, 2008
• Inspection and Complaints Systems in Russian Prisons. Russian Ministry of Justice and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Moscow, 1998.

• 2003 Evaluation of Hertfordshire Enterprise Alliance SRB II Scheme, The National Probation Service, Hertfordshire
• 2002 Casing It Out: why it makes sense to employ ex-offenders, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
• 2002 Employers and Offenders: reducing crime through work and rehabilitation: the change agenda, CIPD
• 2001 Employing People with Conviction: a good practice guide on the employment of people with criminal records, CIPD and the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB)
• 1994 Maximising Employment Opportunities for Offenders in Derbyshire, Derbyshire Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) and Derbyshire Probation Service
• 1994 Working It Out: employment guidance and employer involvement in prisons, South Thames TEC and HMP Belmarsh
• 1993 Missing Links: partnerships between TECs and HM Prison Service, Lancashire West TEC and East Lancashire TEC
• 1991 Bridging the Gap: skills, training and barriers to employment, Bristol City Council,
• 1991 The Hidden Workforce: employing ex-offenders – recruitment, policy and practice, a national survey. British Gas and Northern Foods.
• 1989 Releasing the Potential: maximising employment opportunities for local people in Stonebridge, Brent, London. Bellway Urban Renewals and Brent Council

Nick is currently second supervisor to three PhD students studying:

• barriers to social justice within mental health practice for young offenders;
• mentoring schemes in prisons;
• and crime and criminality from the perspectives of young people.

• Membership of Editorial Boards:British Journal of Community Justice
• Project Refereeing information. The Economic and Social Research Conuncil (ESRC).
• Journal Refereeing information: Body and Society Journal, Sage
• Other Reviewing Activities:Reviewer of book proposals for Palgrave Macmillan

General Editor’s Introduction to Flynn, N. (2010) Criminal Behaviour in Context: space, place and desistance from crime. Cullompton: Willan Publishing.

Nick Flynn’s excellent book is an example of the sorts of research being undertaken in UK universities which is at the very cutting edge of explorations into desistance from crime.

Using qualitative data from interviews with 30 male prisoners, backed up a secondary data analysis of the communities from which they came and to which they returned following their prison sentences, Flynn is able to explore the extent to which “a shared experience of spatial disadvantage in the city shapes offending behaviour”. Notions of ‘space’ and ‘place’ – appropriately embedded in a nuanced consideration of the work of geographers such as David Harvey, Mike Davis, David Massey and Nigel Thrift – are used to develop insights into desistance from crime which are truly novel and which mark this out as a key reference point for future work in this area.

Flynn presents us with conclusions which hint at the complexities and difficulties facing not just those who wish to desist from crime, but those employed to assist them in this journey; the documented failures to secure decent jobs and accommodation indicates, as Flynn remarks, that desistance and reintegration are hugely shaped by where offenders live.

Of course, where they end up living reflects a larger system of reproduction (namely capitalism) which is both highly unstable (in that resources can be moved quickly and without concern about the social consequences of such a move) and which generally locates groups of people differentially according to the availability of these (and other) resources which are key in assisting desistance.

Uneven geographic development is an accepted and systematic outcome of those very social relations and socio-economic processes associated with modern capitalism. In Flynn’s analysis, it follows that reliance on governments to facilitate effective economic and social interventions for those ex-prisoners living in those neighbourhoods blighted by high levels of structurally-induced unemployment and homelessness is unrealistic.

Nick Flynn’s book will make an immediate and lasting impact on debates and theorising about desistance from crime and for this reason in particular we are delighted to include it within the series.

Stephen Farrall,
Sheffield,
February 2010