Charles C. Lanfear

Lecturer (Education) in Criminology at King's College London Recruiting now: Lecturer (Education) in Criminology on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

JOB: Lecturer (Education) in Psychology and Criminology, Kings College London www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQQ332/l...

A poster advertising a seminar given by Dr Helen Kosc at the Institute of Criminology, on 26 February 2026 at 5PM.

Our next Lent Term public seminar will take place tomorrow, with Dr Helen Kosc speaking about ‘Desistance as Temporal Work’, based on her survey of 150 prison-leavers from HMP Bullingdon.

There is still space available on this seminar. Book your place now:
www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/desis...

A poster advertising a public seminar by Dr Helen Kosc, from the Institute of Criminology.

Join Dr Helen Kosc in just under two weeks' time for our next Lent Term public seminar, where she will discuss 'Desistance as temporal work'.

Based on her research into 150 men released from HMP Bullingdon, she will explore what desistance entails.

Book here: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/desis...

And here is the call for abstracts for the 2026 Cars & Crime Symposium: jmpinasanchez.github.io/static/call%...
Taking place in Ilkley (West Yorkshire) on 30–31 July.
If your work explores the intersection of crime and road traffic (see examples below), send us your abstract.
🗓 Deadline: 17 April

I just heard that our funding application was succesful, which means there will be a 2nd #Cars&Crime symposium on the 30/31 of July in Leeds. This time open to everyone. Call for abstracts to be circulated around Easter.
If you are doing research in this area we want to hear from you.

This is the link to the talk I am giving on Thursday 12th Feb (5-6pm) at the Inst. of Criminology @ Cambridge:

www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

Yeah, I immediately imagined the chain where this metric gets built into the Elsevier submission pipeline and either you pay and it tells you your novelty score and/or editors see it on submission and make decisions. And either way they train AI on it and sell that AI to help you write/edit papers.

I received this invitation and paid it little attention, but now thinking about it, I'm angry about the concept. The project website and related Nature piece are inattentive and dismissive of any critiques of novelty and its quantification. Much effort for a new line on the Goodhart's Law wiki page.

Most research in Criminology has serious methods issues, but I take it as an opportunity rather than a source of embarrassment when teaching methods. Helps show value of fundamentals and importance of being a critical consumer of literature.

A poster advertising a public seminar by Professor Stephen Farrall.

One week left until the first of the Lent Term public seminars, given by Professor @stephenfarrall.bsky.social from the @uniofnottingham.bsky.social, about New Labour's policy on crime and its effect on crime over individuals' life course.

Learn more and book: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

"Formatting Graphs", with Andrezj Uhl, from Leeds. Andrezj will introduce the art of 'graph retouching', or how to make your graphs more intuitive and effective using simple online tools like Canva. A workshop of interest to all, regardless of data analysis skills. forms.office.com/pages/respon...

Want to know more about the Potential Outcomes Framework? Check out this short course from the @whiteroseuc.bsky.social DTP training team, based on @clanfear.bsky.social’s great presentation during his visit to Leeds.
wrdtp.ac.uk/methods-reso...

A poster advertising a public seminar by Professor Stephen Farrall.

Join Professor @stephenfarrall.bsky.social for this year's first Lent Term public seminars on 12 February, titled 'The effects of New Labour’s social policy agenda on crime over the life-course'.

Learn more and apply: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

How can the use of different modes of survey data collection introduce bias? An introduction to mode effects using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) Abstract. Survey data are self-reported data collected directly from respondents by a questionnaire or an interview and are commonly used in epidemiology.

Users of survey data, lovers of DAGs, and general methodological enthusiasts, gather round!

I'm so excited to share this new paper, joint work with my brilliant colleagues @rjsilverwood.bsky.social, @pwgtennant.bsky.social, and Liam Wright.

🧵

Juvenile Arrest as a Life Course Trap: Being arrested as a juvenile is associated with a 20-30 percentage-point drop in the likelihood of graduating from a 4-year college.

-Garrett Baker, David Kirk, & Rob Sampson, new in SocIology of Education journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Congrats!

📊 Analytical Sociologists: just over one week left to submit your abstract for this year’s INAS conference at Nuffield College 📚
We look forward to your contributions! 📄✨ www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/our-research... @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social @sociologyoxford.bsky.social

I am now an Associate Professor, which means people from my hometown think I stopped working for a professor but am still in touch with them.

Ya'll sure make some pretty pictures

Paper out with @jpinasanchez.bsky.social & @marcelo-f-aebi.bsky.social in @socialindicators.bsky.social 🔔
How often do we compare crime recorded across countries? We show that crime counting rules vary widely across countries and this strongly affects cross-country comparisons

📢 We’re hiring a Lecturer in Criminology & Criminal Justice 📢
Please do share widely 1/3

Screenshot of title page including the following abstract: To minimise confounding bias and disentangle warranted from unwarranted disparities, researchers examining sentencing discrimination have traditionally sought to control for as many legal factors as possible. However, over the past decade, a growing number of scholars have questioned this strategy, noting that many legal factors are themselves subject to judicial discretion and that controlling for them can introduce post-treatment bias. Here, we use directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to provide a formal and comprehensive assessment of the different types of bias that may arise from different choices of controls. In addition, we propose a new modelling framework to facilitate the selection of controls and reflect the model uncertainty created by the trade-off inherent in judicially-defined legal factors and other factors with a similar dual causal role. We apply this framework to examine race disparities in US federal courts and gender disparities in the England and Wales magistrates’ court. We find substantial model uncertainty for gender disparities and for race disparities affecting Hispanic offenders, rendering estimates of the latter inconclusive. Disparities against black offenders are more consistent and — under specific conditions — could be interpreted as evidence of direct discrimination.

Thrilled to share my latest paper entitled, "Estimating Discrimination in Sentencing: Distinguishing between Good and Bad Controls"

Led by @jpinasanchez.bsky.social, the paper introduces a framework for examining discrimination in criminal justice processes.

🧵 1/10

publicera.kb.se/ejels/articl...

Why do we cooperate with the police & criminal courts?👩‍⚖️

In a new 30-country study, Jon Jackson, Jouni Kuha, @benbradford.bsky.social & Mike Hough find that fair & respectful authority usually beats crime control & fear – but procedural justice power varies by country

👉

I agree completely but one should do so charitably and in good faith. I think we're too reluctant to critique work publicly (myself included!), but the infrequent critiques that are made publicly are also too often unfair and motivated by ideology either directly or indirectly to receive praise.

Congratulations to @rsbeidas.bsky.social and her team for winning the $5000 Greenwald Award for research on firearm violence prevention for their paper, "Implementation of a Secure Firearm Storage Program in Pediatric Primary Care: A Cluster Randomized Trial"! static1.squarespace.com/static/63924...

Why do right to carry laws increase violence? Effects on gun theft and clearance rates Since the 1970s most state restrictions on carrying handguns in public have been eased or eliminated. Several of the early impact evaluations of these…

Congratulations to John J. Donohue and colleagues, whose paper, “Why do right to carry laws increase violence? Effects on gun theft and clearance rates,” was one of two selected for honorable mention by the 2025 Greenwald Award Independent Review Panel! sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thank you Andrew! Very honored! We really enjoyed putting this paper together and are very pleased by the response it has gotten. Huge thanks also to the NCGVR for the funding for the fifth wave that made this and other recent work possible.

Very honored by this; thank you Andrew! Wish I could have made it to the conference this year to celebrate! Also, important to note this research was made possible with funding from the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research for the PHDCN's fifth wave.

Mannheim Centre for Criminology | PhD Symposium 2026 The LSE’s Mannheim Centre for Criminology is pleased to announce the inaugural PhD Symposium taking place 18-19 May 2026

Are you a PhD student working on a criminological topic (broadly construed)?

The LSE’s Mannheim Centre for Criminology is pleased to announce the inaugural PhD Symposium on 18-19 May 2026.

➡️ Find out more about the call for applications here:

Loved transit in Madrid and Barcelona. I got an enormous classic Madrid Metro poster for my living room because I loved it so much.