John Synnott

Dr John Synnott is a Chartered Psychologist, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychology Society a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and the Associate Director for the MSc in Investigative Psychology and Deputy Director of the MSc in Security Science. He obtained his Degree in Psychology from University College Dublin, Ireland and he completed his MSc in Investigative Psychology at the University of Liverpool. John joined the University in 2013 on completeion of his PhD entitled ‘Why Crime Occurs Where it Does’ which examined cases of Tiger Kidnap from both the Republic and North of Ireland, in addition to analysing criminal mental maps and offenders representation of offending locations.

His research areas include Forensic and Criminal Psychology; Investigative Psychology; Suicide; Media and crime; Homicide; Offender profiling; Mental Maps; Geographic profiling; Amnesia and crime; Deception (Polygraph); Tiger kidnap; and Sports Psychology.

John has presented research on the Psychology of Crime and Offender Decision Making at conferences around the world. He his delivered lectures on Decision Making and Risk as it relates to crime and designed and lead a module on Investigative Psychology, the first of its kind in the UK, to final year Psychology students. Dr Synnott has contributed reports to the Irish Police Force (An Gardai), the Irish Prison Service (IPS), the Irish Governments White Paper on Crime and to the Minister for Justice Office, Ireland. Dr Synnott recently provided consultation on the development of a Risk Assessment Tool for Domestic Violence for the Irish Police Force and Department of Justice Ireland and has consulted on similar Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Scales for a police force in the UK.

He has recently evaluated a prison training program for offenders at Shelton Abbey Prison in Ireland and has just completed a Mental Wellbeing project at the same facility that was recently presented at the British Psychology Societies Division of Forensic Psychology conference in Bristol. Dr Synnott has just published a special issue as guest editor on the topic of Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse for the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling. He has extensive Media experience having appeared on radio (Newstalk, Capital FM) and television (BBC) and his work has featured in media both nationally and internationally (Washington Post & CNN) as well has being featured as an editorial in the prestigious journal of Nature. Dr Synnott is a member of the School Research Ethics Panel and Business and Consultancy Committee at the University of Huddersfield and is a member of the Secure Societies Institute.