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About Simon
Professor Simon Pemberton is Professor in Social Policy and Criminology in the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology, School of Social Policy and Society, University of Birmingham. He also serves as Postgraduate Taught Admissions Lead and Programme Lead for the Social Policy and Criminology BA. Pemberton holds an LLB from the University of Central England (1997), an MA in Socio-Legal Studies from the University of the West of England (1998), and a PhD from the University of Bristol (2004) titled 'The Production of Harm in the United Kingdom: A Social Harm Perspective'. After his PhD, he was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2005 and appointed Lecturer at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. He held roles as Associate Editor of Policy and Politics (2006-2009) and Membership Secretary of the Social Policy Association (2010-2013). Pemberton joined the University of Birmingham in 2012 as a Birmingham Fellow, progressing to his current professorship.
His research specializations encompass state and corporate harm, poverty, inequality and human rights, and the interplay of social harm, crime, and criminalisation. As Principal Investigator, he leads projects funded by The JABBS Foundation, including the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA) Expansion Programme (2026-2029), Birmingham Pathfinder (2025-2027), and evaluations of the effectiveness of Women's Centres in England and Wales (2023-2029). Key publications include the monograph Harmful Societies: Understanding Social Harm (Policy Press, 2015); 'From the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ suspect community: Examining the impacts of recent UK counter-terrorist legislation' with C. Pantazis (British Journal of Criminology, 2009); 'Social harm future(s): exploring the potential of the social harm approach' (Crime, Law and Social Change, 2007); 'Navigating the stigmatised identities of poverty in austere times: Resisting and responding to narratives of personal failure' with E. Fahmy, E. Sutton, and K. Bell (Critical Social Policy, 2016); and 'Examining the Effectiveness of Interventions for Criminal Justice-Involved Women: A Meta-Analytic Review' with R. Summers and J. Long (Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2025). Pemberton co-edits the Policy Press Series 'Studies in Social Harm' and has influenced debates on inequality-induced harms.
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