Ed is interested in all aspects of research surrounding prisons and penal policy, with particular focus on offender mental health and wellbeing, safer custody and power-sharing initiatives in prisons, as well as a broader interest in punitiveness within the Criminal Justice System in Western Europe.
Ed holds a 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Criminology and Psychology. He completed his MA with Distinction in Criminology at The University of Kent with a dissertation entitled: ‘Peer Support and Well-Being: Exploring the Impact of Peer-Led Induction on Male Prisoners’, which is an impact evaluation of the effects of a power-sharing initiative on the mental health and wellbeing of adult male prisoners. Ed was awarded a Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship for his PhD, which builds upon his MA with a multi-site investigation of this intervention through the theoretical conceptual lens of Power, Weight, Tightness, Depth and Legitimacy in prisons.
Ed has recently contributed an auto-ethnographic chapter to the book ‘Degrees of Freedom’ (Policy Press) regarding the experience of distance learning in custodial settings and the interaction with the offender identity. He has an article forthcoming in The Journal of Prisoners on Prisoners.
Ed teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students in a range of Criminology and Sociology courses at The University of Kent at both the Canterbury and Medway campuses.