Professor Christopher Birkbeck

Professor of Criminology

• Crescent House 503
• T: 0161 295 6551
• E: c.h.birkbeck@salford.ac.uk
• SEEK: Research profile

Monday: 2.00pm – 5.00pm

Tuesday: 2.00pm – 5.00pm

Wednesday: 2.00pm – 5.00pm

Thursday: 2.00pm – 5.00pm

Friday: 2.00pm – 5.00pm

I was born and educated in the UK, studying geography at the University of Oxford (1974) and completing a Ph.D. on crime in Latin America (1981) at what is now Swansea University. In 1980, I moved to Venezuela to work in the Universidad de Los Andes, where I was involved in the development of South America’s first undergraduate degree programme in Criminology (which opened in 1992). I remained with the Universidad de Los Andes until the end of 2005, having been a Professor of Criminology since 1993 and co-founder of the Criminology Research Group. Between 1987 and 1999, I also spent more than five years as a visiting teacher and researcher at the University of New Mexico, in the United States. I joined the University of Salford in 2006, where I am now a Professor of Criminology. I have also been a visiting scholar at the University of Montreal (2003) and the University of Florida (2009).

I have taught a wide variety of courses in Criminology and related subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, including comparative criminology, research methods for criminology, criminological theory, juvenile delinquency and state terror.

My current teaching mainly relates to the workings of the criminal justice system. With Muzammil Quraishi, I have led the planning and implementation of an innovative new undergraduate module on ‘The Criminal Justice Process’, which is jointly delivered with a group of senior criminal justice practitioners. I also explore the sociological and narrative dimensions of the criminal justice process in a module on ‘Constructing Guilt and Innocence’.

My research has for long looked at Latin America and now has widened its focus to include Anglo America as well. Over the years, I have studied a variety of topics relating to crime and criminal justice, including the situational perspective on crime, use of force by the police, prisons and community sanctions, and juvenile crime. My current research focuses on the moralizing about crime that is found in public discourse, and seeks to understand the character and content of that morality and its significance for identity and experience.

B.A. (Hons.) Geography (First), University of Oxford, 1974

M.A., University of Oxford, 1979

Ph.D., University of Wales, 1981

Collective Morality and Crime in the Americas. London: Routledge. 2013.

Criminología Comparada: Estudios de Caso sobre Delincuencia, Control Social y Moralidad (Comparative Criminology: Case Studies on Crime, Social Control and Morality). Madrid: Dykinson. 2012.

“Imprisonment and Internment: Comparing Penal Facilities North and South.” Punishment and Society 13(3)307-332, 2011.

“Venezuela.” Christopher Birkbeck, Solbey Morillo, Freddy Crespo. Pp. 385-398 in Juvenile Delinquency in Europe and Beyond. Results of the Second International Delinquency Self-Report Study, edited by Josine Junger-Tas et al.. New York: Springer. 2010.

“Venezuela. Policing as an Exercise in Authority.” Christopher Birkbeck, Luis Gerardo Gabaldón. Pp. 165-187 in Policing DevelopingDemocracies, edited by Mercedes Hinton and Tim Newburn. Abingdon: Routledge. 2009.