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Professor Emmeline Taylor

Professor of Criminology

School of Policy & Global Affairs Department of Sociology and Criminology

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About

Overview

Emmeline Taylor is Professor of Criminology in the School of Policy and Global Affairs. She specialises in understanding serious acquisitive crime and business crime, particularly focusing on the retail sector as well as new and emerging (surveillance) technologies.

Emmeline welcomes enquiries from prospective postgraduate research (PhD) students on these topics.

Working closely with industry, the police and government Emmeline is:

- Chair of the Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRP) National Standards Board (read more about this agenda here)

- Member of the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) chaired by the Minister for Crime and Policing (read more about the NRCSG here)

- Academic Lead on the Strategic Oversight Board for Business Crime (SOBBC) chaired by the NPCC Lead

- Member of the Home Office Commercial Victimisation Survey Expert Panel (read more about the CVS here)

Prof Taylor has worked in the public, private and academic sectors, and on three continents. She joined City, University of London in 2017 having previously held positions at the Australian National University (Australia), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Greater Manchester Probation Trust (UK), the University of Salford, and Perpetuity Research and Consultancy International (UK), She was previously an Associate of the Designing out Crime (DOC) research centre at the University of Technology, Sydney and has been a Visiting Researcher at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and University College London (UCL).

Emmeline has completed empirical research in a number of sociological and criminological areas including; surveillance and the societal impact of new technologies, armed robbery, residential burglary, retail crime, crime and security in education, and several evaluations of criminal justice initiatives in England and Australia. She is currently working on several projects to improve retail security, tackle violence towards staff, loss of goods and criminal damage. Professor Taylor has published extensively across these topics, including the books:

Armed Robbers: Identity and Cultural Mythscapes in the Lucky Country (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Surveillance Schools (Palgrave, 2013);

Surveillance Futures (Routledge, 2017, w/T. Rooney);

The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control (Palgrave, 2018, w/J. Deakin and A. Kupchik);

Crime, Deviance, and Society: A Sociological Introduction (Cambridge University Press, w/ A. Rodas et al.)

Emmeline hosts the podcast Retail Crime Uncovered, and is a regular guest on national television. She has appeared on many high profile TV shows including: The One Show (BBC1), History's Greatest Heists (presented by Pierce Brosnan), Frontline Fightback (BBC1; two series), Newsnight (BBC2), Shoplifters and Scammers (Ch5), At War With the Law (Ch5), Supermarket Secrets (BBC1), Daybreak (ITV), BBC Politics (BBC1) and BBC Breakfast (BBC1). A career highlight was having her research on SWIPERS (people who steal from self-service checkouts) included as the 'most talked about this week' segment on BBC's Have I Got News For You with some hilarious commentary. 

Committed to the public dissemination of research and knowledge exchange, Emmeline has authored opinion pieces in national newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald and academic blogs, as well as having her work cited in mainstream publications such as WIRED magazine, Forbes, The Guardian and The Telegraph (UK) She is often a guest on national radio shows including BBC Radio 2’s Thinking Allowed and ABCs Late Night Live discussing issues related to crime, security and surveillance. 

Emmeline is a member of the Editorial Board for the British Journal of Criminology and was formerly on the boards of the Security Journal, Surveillance & Society, the International Advisory Board of the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, the Advisory Board for Criminological Encounters, and on the judging panel for the Outstanding Security performance Awards (OSPAs). Emmeline was formerly Co-Director of the Surveillance Studies Network, and served as the elected state representative for the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC).

Publications

Publications by category

Books (6)

  • Taylor, E. (2022). Armed Robbers Identity and Cultural Mythscapes in the Lucky Country. ISBN 9780198855132.
  • Rodas, A., Beckley, A., Rawlinson, P., Simpson, A., Taylor, E., Thomsen, S.... Walters, R. (2020). Crime, Deviance and Society: A Sociological Introduction to Criminology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Deakin, J., Taylor, E. and Kupchik, A. (Eds.), (2018). The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance and Social Control. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319715582.
  • Taylor, E. and Rooney, T. (2017). Surveillance Futures: Social and ethical implications of new technologies for children and young people. ISBN 9781317048138.
  • Taylor, E. (2013). Surveillance Schools: Security, Discipline, and Control in Contemporary Education. Springer. ISBN 9781137308863.
  • Deasey, S., Smith, N., Forrest, C., Taylor, E. and Maslen, J. (Eds.), (2007). Authentic Artifice Cultures of the Real. ISBN 9781902496498.

Chapters (20)

  • Taylor, E. (2022). Violence Against Shop Workers: Trends and Triggers in the United Kingdom. The Handbook of Security (pp. 173-192). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030917340.
  • Taylor, E. and Southerton, C. (2021). Dataveillance and the dividuated self: the everyday digital surveillance of young people. In B.A., A. and B.G., S. (Eds.), The Pre-Crime Society: Crime, Culture, and Control in the Ultramodern Age Bristol: Bristol University Press.
  • Southerton, C. and Taylor, E. (2021). Dataveillance and the Dividuated Self: The Everyday Digital Surveillance of Young People. The Pre-Crime Society (pp. 249-268). Bristol University Press. ISBN 9781529205251.
  • Taylor, E. and Lee, M. (2020). The camera never lies?: Police body-worn cameras and operational discretion. Police on Camera Surveillance Privacy and Accountability (pp. 80-94).
  • Taylor, E. (2018). COPS and Robbers: Customer operated payment systems, new point of sale technologies and the impact on retail crime. In Ceccato, V. and Armitage, R. (Eds.), Retail Crime: International Evidence and Prevention (pp. 99-120). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 3319730649.
  • Taylor, E. (2018). Recent Developments in Surveillance: An Overview of Body-Worn Cameras in Schools. The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control (pp. 371-388). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319715582.
  • Taylor, E. and Kearney, A. (2018). School Discipline and Surveillance: Developments in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control (pp. 87-104). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319715582.
  • Taylor, E., Deakin, J. and Kupchik, A. (2018). The Changing Landscape of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control. The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control (pp. 1-13). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319715582.
  • In Lee, M. and Mythen, G. (Eds.), (2017). The Routledge International Handbook on Fear of Crime. In Routledge.
  • Taylor, E. (2018). Closed-Circuit Television. In Arrigo, B. (Ed.), Sage Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security, and Privacy Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781483359946.
  • Taylor, E. (2018). COPS and Robbers: Customer Operated Payment Systems, Self-Service Checkout and the Impact on Retail Crime. Retail Crime (pp. 99-119). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319730646.
  • Taylor, E. and Rooney, T. (2017). Digital Playgrounds; Growing up in the surveillance age. In Taylor, E. and Rooney, T. (Eds.), Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People Routledge.
  • Taylor, E. (2017). "If I Wanted to Be on Big Brother, I Would’ve Auditioned for It": Examining the Media Representation of CCTV in Schools and the Impact of Visual Surveillance on Schoolchildren. In Taylor, E. and Rooney, T. (Eds.), Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People Routledge.
  • Taylor, E. (2017). Teaching us to be ‘smart’? The use of RFID in schools and the habituation of young people to everyday surveillance. In Taylor, E. and Rooney, T. (Eds.), Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People Routledge.
  • Taylor, E. (2017). Commercial Armed Robbery. The Palgrave Handbook of Australian and New Zealand Criminology, Crime and Justice (pp. 147-158). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783319557465.
  • Taylor, E. and Gill, M. (2014). CCTV; Its Use, Abuse and Effectiveness. In Gill, M. (Ed.), Handbook of Security Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Taylor, E. (2012). The rise of the surveillance school. Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies (pp. 225-231).
  • Taylor Emmeline, (2012). Awareness, understanding and experiences of CCTV amongst teachers and pupils in three UK schools. Innovation and the Public Sector IOS Press.
  • Deasey, S., Forrest, C., Maslen, J., Smith, N. and Taylor, E. (2007). Making it a Reality: The Authentic as an Artifice. In Deasey, S., Forrest, C., Maslen, J., Smith, N. and Taylor, E. (Eds.), Authentic Artifice: Cultures of the Real Manchester: European Studies Research Institute. ISBN 1902496493.
  • Taylor, E. and Lee, M. The camera never lies? Police body worn cameras and operational discretion. In Newell, B. (Ed.), Police on Camera. Oxon: Routledge.

Internet publications (11)

Journal articles (35)

Reports (14)

Other (6)

  • Taylor, E. Intensive Probation.

    [Wiley]

  • Taylor, E.(2011). Prison mental health: Vision and reality.

    [SAGE Publications]

  • Taylor, E.(2011). Review: What Else Works? Creative Work with Offenders.

    [SAGE Publications]

  • Taylor, Taylor, E. (2011) Book Review: Race and Criminal Justice (Singh Bhui, H.), Probation Journal. June 2011; vol. 58(2) pp. 176-177.
  • Taylor, Taylor, E. (2010) Book Review: Exploring Modern Probation: Social Theory and Organisational Complexity (Whitehead, P.). Polity Press; pp. 186. Probation Journal.
  • Taylor, Taylor, E. (2010) Book Review: Gangs, Marginalised Youth and Social Capital (Deuchar, R.), Probation Journal. September 2010; 57(1) pp.342-343.