Professor Iain Brennan

Professor Iain Brennan

Professor of Criminology

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Arts Cultures and Education
  • School of Criminology, Sociology and Policing

Qualifications

  • BSc (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
  • PhD / DPhil (Cardiff University)
  • MA (University College Cork)

Summary

Iain Brennan is a Professor of Criminology and a chartered research psychologist.

He is the University of Hull Institutional Lead for Open Research, Director of Research for the School of Criminology, Sociology & Policing and Chair of the University Research Concordat Steering Group. He is a founding member of the Humberside Police-Academic Partnership and its academic lead.

Iain's research interests are in violence prevention including weapon-carrying and serious violence, domestic abuse and violence in night-time economies. He is particularly interested in evaluating interventions in these areas and has led many evaluation studies incorporating randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs and process evaluations.

He is an adviser on violence prevention to local and national governmental and non-governmental organisations including Home Office, Youth Endowment Fund, College of Policing, National Police Chiefs' Council and many police forces across the UK.

He has been a principal or co-investigator on research projects worth over £5m from funders including ESRC, Home Office, ADR-UK, NPCC, Jacobs Foundation and the European Commission. He is currently principal investigator on several research projects including a £1.5m evaluation of focused deterrence interventions on behalf of Youth Endowment Fund.

He is the author of over 40 journal articles, reports, chapters and books and is a member of the editorial board of British Journal of Criminology.

BA Criminology

- Offending and Victimisation

BSc Psychology (Hull)

- Forensic Psychology

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Journal Article

Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce

Brennan, I., Couto, L., & O’Leary, N. (2023). Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce. Policing and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2184817

Police practitioner views on the challenges of analysing and responding to knife crime

Bullock, K., Agar, I., Ashby, M., Brennan, I., Hales, G., Sidebottom, A., & Tilley, N. (2023). Police practitioner views on the challenges of analysing and responding to knife crime. Crime Science, 12(1), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-022-00180-1

Police victims of domestic abuse: barriers to reporting victimisation

Couto, L., O’Leary, N., & Brennan, I. (2023). Police victims of domestic abuse: barriers to reporting victimisation. Policing and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2250523

The potential for linking cohort participants to official criminal records: a pilot study using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

Boyd, A., Teyhan, A., Cornish, R. P., Croft, J., Thomas, R., Brennan, I., & Macleod, J. (2022). The potential for linking cohort participants to official criminal records: a pilot study using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Wellcome Open Research, 5, Article 271. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16328.2

Evaluating interventions for violence prevention using linked MoJ-DfE data: a feasibility study.

Cornish, R., Tilling, K., & Brennan, I. (2022). Evaluating interventions for violence prevention using linked MoJ-DfE data: a feasibility study. International Journal of Population Data Science, 7(3), Article 105. https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v7i3.1877

Research interests

Iain's research is on the application of psychological and criminological theory to the understanding and prevention of community violence.

He undertakes research work in:

- Weapon use

- Serious youth violence

- Domestic abuse

- Evaluation of violence prevention interventions

- Crime reporting and victim responses to crime

- Evidence-based policing and use of experiments in criminal justice

- Information sharing for violence prevention

- Diversion from custody

Lead investigator

Project

Funder

Grant

Started

Status

Project

AREDAA feasibility study

Funder

Home Office

Grant

£109,491.00

Started

1 August 2021

Status

Ongoing

Project

Youth Endowment Fund’s place-based Agency Collaboration Fund: Another chance

Funder

Youth Endowment Fund

Grant

£1,211,000.00

Started

1 June 2022

Status

Ongoing

Project

Triangulating the relationship between school exclusion and serious violence

Funder

Youth Endowment Fund

Grant

£17,136.00

Started

1 August 2023

Status

Ongoing

Project

HIKE: International Conference on Focussed Deterrence 2024

Funder

AHRC Arts & Humanities Research Council

Grant

£7,735.00

Started

1 February 2024

Status

Ongoing

Project

The impact of childhood adversity on violent crime in adolescence and early adulthood

Funder

ESRC Economic & Social Research Council

Grant

£19,439.00

Started

1 January 2021

Status

Complete

Project

Evaluation of Violence Reduction Units

Funder

Home Office

Grant

£17,850.00

Started

1 September 2019

Status

Complete

Project

Police Initiated Diversion for Youth to Prevent Future Delinquent Behaviour: A Systematic Review

Funder

George Mason University

Grant

£4,600.00

Started

1 July 2016

Status

Complete

Project

HO/ADR UK Feasibility Study

Funder

ESRC Economic & Social Research Council

Grant

£1,823.00

Started

1 May 2020

Status

Complete

Project

Evaluation of the Violence Reduction Units 3

Funder

Ecorys UK Limited

Grant

£17,579.00

Started

1 September 2021

Status

Complete

Project

Violence Reduction Units – Impact and processes evaluation No4

Funder

Ecorys UK Limited

Grant

£24,300.00

Started

1 November 2022

Status

Complete

Co-investigator

Project

Funder

Grant

Started

Status

Project

Humberside VRU Evaluation

Funder

Humberside Police

Grant

£202,891.00

Started

1 January 2023

Status

Ongoing

Project

Heroin and Crack Action Evaluation

Funder

Humberside Police

Grant

£12,000.00

Started

1 November 2020

Status

Complete

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Brennan is happy to hear from potential students interested in undertaking postgraduate research in any of his areas of research interest.

He is particularly interested to hear from potential supervisees in the areas of knife crime/weapon violence, victim responses and interpretations of crime, the policing of domestic abuse and open research in criminology.

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