Contact
Biography
Dr Melanie Jordan undertakes undergraduate and postgraduate teaching as well as PhD supervision plus personal and collaborative research and publication - in the fields of criminology and sociology. Melanie currently supervises several doctoral students, but is interested in hearing from potential new PhD students.
Melanie also works with governmental and non-governmental bodies and charities as an advisor on elements of prisons, survivor services, public protection policing, secure sites, care settings, mental health, therapeutic environments, etc.
Melanie has a PhD in Prison Mental Health, a MA in Research Method, and a BA in Social Policy. Melanie moved to this post after several post-doc. years at the University of Nottingham on Jubilee Campus in the Institute of Mental Health building.
Dr Mel Jordan spent the Michaelmas Term of 2017 at the University of Oxford, Centre for Criminology, with Prof. Mary Bosworth et al., as an Academic Visitor - whilst on Study Leave from the University of Nottingham.
Academic fields:
- Criminology
- Sociology (Medical & Organisational)
- Social Science Research Methodology & Method
The study of criminology is inherently an interdisciplinary endeavour, due to its focus on social problems and welfare (social policy), social relations and institutions (sociology), and social deviance and behaviours (criminology); Melanie is knowledgeable and active in all three areas of academia.
Melanie undertakes research and teaching across criminology, including:
- Theoretical Criminology
- Deviance Theory: Social Action & Reaction
- Penology: Philosophy & Practice
- Victimology & Crime
- Crime & Social Dimensions
- Crimes Of The Powerful
- Sex Crime
- Female Prisoners
- Criminal Justice System Staff
- Crime & Mental Illness
- Offender Health
Personal Twitter a/c = @MJordanBirkhead
ORCID = orcid.org/0000-0002-4447-6145
Teaching Summary
Research and teaching interests:
Criminology: Theoretical criminology; Penology philosophy and practice; Sociology of deviance and criminological theories of deviance; Victimology; Crime and social dimensions; Sociology of prisons and incarceration; Prison culture(s); Ventriloquist populism, media, politics, and the criminal justice system; Sociological research in the justice system (e.g. ethnographic work in prisons); The criminal justice system workforce; Crimes of the powerful and white collar crime; Sex crime and approaches to sexual offenders; Offending behaviours and morality; Private prisons and immigration removal centres; Female prisoners; Vulnerable prisoners (e.g. sexual offenders); Policing, probation, and community sentences; Prison abolition and recidivism approaches; Liaison and diversion away from the criminal justice system; Reducing the cycle of re-offending and related community work; Institutionalisation theory and penal settings; Historical and current prison architecture; State corporal punishment and morality; The social and health profile of offenders; Crime and mental illness; Offender health: prevention, promotion, and treatment; Prison healthcare; Personality disordered offenders and offenders with learning/intellectual disability.
Medical Sociology: Medical sociology and anthropology (esp. historical and current custodial settings); Healthcare provision and receipt experiences and environments (esp. penal/forensic sites); The sociology of illness and healthcare (esp. regarding offenders and recidivism link); Sociology of health professions/relationships (esp. prison staff-NHS prison staff relations).
Social Science Research: Method and methodology theory plus data collection/construction discussions; Epistemology debates re. quantitative and qualitative knowledge; Research with vulnerable participants and research ethics considerations.
Research Summary
Current Research:
Research interests include prisons, ethnography, philosophy and ethics in the criminal justice system, transnational organised crime (e.g. modern slavery), sex crime, deviance, theoretical criminology, critical criminology, forensic mental health, cultural criminology, gender and the criminal justice system, etc.
- Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, Emily Evans, Eddie Kane, Mel Jordan, et al. = Youth justice interventions and trauma-informed work
- Jack Tomlin, Sarah Kilbane, Shelley Turner, Mel Jordan = Conditional discharge, recall, support, and social work
- Co-I = Global mental healthcare and parrhesia
- Co-I = Prisoners with sexual offences in the realm of modern slavery
- Co-I = NIHR prison healthcare harm
- Co-I = NIHR modern slavery survival and mental health
- PI = Capoeira & Community, AHRC / IMH Study
- PI = The Prison Reform & Voter Appetite Study
- PI = The 4 x P Study = Public Protection Police Performativity
- PI = Justice later in life? (Re. adult therapy for survivors of childhood sexual abuse)
Ongoing research planning and submitted grant applications in the fields of:
Prison built environment; Labelling in secure settings; Perinatal period identity work; Philosophy of interviewing; Penal reform; Music-making behind bars; Intrafamilial deviance narratives; Anti-slavery; Construction of deviance in childcare settings.
Recent-only successful grant applications:
2018 = Dr Melanie Jordan (Co-I) et al. (e.g., Prof. Jenny Shaw, PI), NIHR research re. prison healthcare harm, with UoN and UoManchester colleagues
2018 = Dr Melanie Jordan (Co-I) et al. (e.g., Dr Nicola Wright, PI), NIHR research re. mental health, grounded theory, and modern slavery survivors, with UoN colleagues
2017 = Prof. Zoe Trodd et al.'s UoN Rights Lab Beacon, Dr Mel Jordan & Dr Nicola Wright, Care & Custody Lever - re. mental health for slavery survivors and offending theory development re. slavery perpetrators
Selected Publications
MELANIE JORDAN, ED WRIGHT, AIMIE PURSER, ANDREW GRUNDY, EMMA JOYES, NICOLA WRIGHT, PAUL CRAWFORD and NICK MANNING, 2018. Capoeira for beginners: Self-benefit for, and
community action by, new Capoeiristas Journal: Sport, Education and Society. HAMILTON, IAN S., SCHNEIDER, JUSTINE, KANE, EDDIE and JORDAN, MELANIE, 2015. Employment of ex-prisoners with mental health problems, a realistic evaluation protocol BMC PSYCHIATRY. 15,
Past Research
2012 ~ PhD ~ Prison mental health: Context is crucial
A sociological exploration of male prisoners' mental health and the provision of mental healthcare in a prison setting
Abstract: This thesis represents a sociological exploration of Her Majesty's Prison Service, male prisoners' mental health, and the provision of National Health Service mental healthcare in a prison setting. This qualitative social science study is conducted in one prison establishment. The work is characterised as a policy and practice orientated exploratory case study. The study implements an inductive approach to the datum-theory relationship, a constructionist ontological position, and an interpretivist epistemological orientation. Semi-structured interviews are conducted in a male category B prison with healthcare centre staff (e.g. registered general nurse, registered mental health nurse, health care assistant, plus varied administration and clinical management staff), the secondary mental health team (psychologist, psychiatrist, community psychiatric nurse), prison governors, prison psychologists, primary-level mental health service users/prisoners, and secondary-level mental health service users/prisoners. The subject of place is salient when deliberating the mental health of prisoners as a social group. The prison setting can fashion or exacerbate mental illness. In comparison to the general population, the prevalence of mental distress experienced by the prison population is exceedingly high. In order to consider issues that concern the mental health of prisoners (i.e. aetiology, prevalence, severity, interventions, and outcomes), the prison setting as a communal and procedural place requires attention. Therefore, this medical sociology study devotes attention to social and institutional arrangements that permeate the prison locale. As examples, these include prisoner-staff relations and prison regimes. The prison environment is not conducive to good mental health, and is not often a useful catalyst for mental healthcare for myriad reasons. Notably, the custodial treatment setting is important here. The provision of mental healthcare and the pursuit of good mental health in the prison milieu are challenging. Thus, the prison-based exceedingly complex three-way relationship between culture, mental health, and mental healthcare is addressed. As, if one wishes to provide appropriate healthcare in a prison, one also has to understand something about those for whom the healthcare exists. Knowledge of the specific patient group is important. Therefore, prison healthcare ought to be increasingly fashioned (i.e. commissioned, provided, managed, and practiced) in accordance with the prison social environment, the institutional set-up, and the specific health requirements of patients/prisoners. The proposition is that context is crucial to the provision of wholly apt prison mental healthcare. Study data are analysed thematically. Resultant themes include: the nature of clinician-patient/prisoner rapport; the working environment of the healthcare setting; the notions of healthcare provision and receipt in a custodial setting; patients'/prisoners' perspectives regarding prison mental health; aspects concerning prison existence and mental healthcare users' experiences; prison staff mental health knowledge, roles, and responsibilities; prison service and healthcare services collaborative working. The penal milieu in relation to an extensive variety of issues impacts mental health and mental healthcare. These range from the overarching ethos of imprisonment right through to individual interactions in the setting. To précis, mental healthcare provision and receipt experiences and environments are important for clinicians and patients/prisoners alike.
Between 2011 and 2014 Melanie was based in the Institute of Mental Health building at the University of Nottingham:
Centre for Health and Justice
This research centre is a Criminal Justice System (CJS) orientated Centre of Excellence led by Prof. Eddie Kane. Research roles and responsibilities included study leadership and management, bidding success, staff recruitment, plus hands-on fieldwork (e.g. in prisons and secure forensic sites), analysis, and write-up activities. I was involved in multiple pieces of CJS research. A three prison study based in Buckinghamshire (HMP Grendon, HMP Spring Hill, and HMYOI Aylesbury), plus a forensic project for NHS London regarding high risk and cost users, and an offender PD pathway study at HMP Swinfen Hall. The centre submitted a NIHR Programme Development Grant application; for this project I managed and undertook a piece of qualitative research entitled Working with Personality Disordered Offenders: NHS and NOMS joint working experiences. This necessitated working with national CJS leaders and policy-makers plus frontline staff.
Social Futures Centre
I am a lead member of staff for Social Futures (SoFu) - a new Centre of Excellence led by Prof. Paul Crawford. I attend senior leadership team meetings and act as an Integrated Research Group lead for the Centre. I also undertake administration roles for SoFu (e.g. membership and event management). My capoeira study is located within SoFu.
NIHR CLAHRC-NDL
For the CLAHRC I led one study, the Internal Evaluation Research. I was the Principal Investigator; the full research team included Dr Emma Rowley, Prof. Nick Manning, and Prof. Richard Morriss. This work focused on the CLAHRC as an iterative organisation and explored members' experiences of the CLAHRC research endeavour via interview method. Concepts debated include: engagement, research capacity, innovative and intersubjective workplace goals, plus professional and epistemic boundaries.
Future Research
Past & Present PGRs:
Edward J. Wright
PhD title: From Rookie to Rocky? On Modernity, Identity and White Collar Boxing.
The empirical grounding of Ed's doctoral research is in-and-around a boxing club which caters for white collar boxing. White collar boxing is a form of engagement in the fistic trade emergent in late modernity. In this context, this form of engagement entails participation in a short-term, intensive training programme in preparation for a full-contact boxing match in front of a large crowd.
Research questions are as follows:
- What is white collar boxing?
- How do social divisions order practice in white collar boxing?
- How might the answers to the questions above contribute to our understanding of the formation of identity in late modernity?
White collar boxing, in being a recently emergent form of the sport, is under-researched. Historically, boxing has been austerely ordered according to various social divisions in-composite, in particular (though no particular order is implied here): class, gender and 'race'. Whether white collar boxing entails a continuity of such austere social logic is of interest to address. Various 'grand' sociological theorists have proclaimed that we now live in a second (late, liquid) modernity in which the social divisions of the past no longer meaningfully order practice; we are now 'tourists', ever-reflexive subjects treading individually-defined life-courses, consuming identity in a 'pay-as-you-go' manner. This body of theory is however rarely empirically analysed, rather constructed at an unduly abstract level and treated as sociological 'common sense'. Answering the questions above, via ethnographic data collection at the boxing club ultimately amounts to effort towards analysing such claims.
Ed is a tutor in criminology at undergraduate level, the philosophy of social science at postgraduate level, and occasionally lectures on various aspects of social science. He has a general interest in social theory and qualitative methods. He is currently developing further research on the sociology of the face.
Ian Hamilton
Title: Employment of Prisoners with Mental Health Problems. My PhD is looking at the effectiveness of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) for offenders with mental health problems. To do this I will be using a mixed method approach within a Realistic Evaluation framework. I will primarily be examining whether IPS is successful in achieving real employment outcomes for people with mental health problems released from prison. I will also be focusing upon and monitoring how the IPS service/employment impacts upon an individuals Mental Health, Recidivism, and Social Stability (at the 6 and 12 month stages). All of these findings will contribute to how IPS needs to be adapted, if required, to achieve the best possible outcomes in a criminal justice setting. Supervisors: Prof. Eddie Kane, Prof. Justine Schneider, and Dr Melanie Jordan.
Emma Joyes
PhD Title: Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery explored within Forensic Mental Health.
Supervisors: Professor Paul Crawford and Dr Melanie Jordan.
This research is funded as part of a larger AHRC/RCUK Connected Communities grant, entitled 'Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery (CPMR): Connecting Communities for Mental Health and Well-being'. The programme of research investigates how Creative Practices (creative activities from the fields of the Arts and Humanities, for example creative writing, painting, literature, drawing, singing etc.) may afford an opportunity for mutual recovery of mental health and well-being among both staff or carers and those receiving care from mental health services. This research explores the Creative Practices which occur within one inpatient Forensic Mental Health (FMH) site, consider its contribution to wellbeing and explore the potential for Creative Practices, engaged with by staff or residents, to be of reciprocal or mutual value.
An ethnographic case study research design is being adopted to explore three units within one UK residential FMH site. The methods include Overt Participant Observation, Documentary Analysis and Semi-structured interviews. The ethnographic approach is congruent with the exploratory nature of the aims of this project. The research design is purposely iterative so that the concepts such as Creative Practice, mental health and well-being and the emergent concept of mutual recovery can be investigated within the interpretivist tradition.
Teaching summary: Emma provided tutorial support for the University's Doctoral Training Centre Qualitative Research Methods module in 2015.
Lynn Saunders
Lynn's current research is supported by the National Offender Management Service. It explores the experiences and expectations of people who have been convicted of sexual offences leaving prison and their return to the community. It also explores the approaches of Offender Managers in dealing with the risks and challenges of this group of offenders. The research is supervised by Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit and Dr Melanie Jordan.
Anthony Salla
PhD title: A Critical Race Study on Non-Statutory Early Intervention Services for Young Racialised People
This research is funded by the ESRC. This study utilises Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a theoretical, methodological and analytical framework to explore the lived experience of young people, racialised as Black, in non-statutory mental health services. To carry out the research descriptive phenomenological methods will be used to interview young people, age 16-25, who have accessed non-statutory organisations in England. By combining CRT with descriptive methods this will help to place emphasis on the stories of service-users as the holders of knowledge, and thus recognising racialised voices of authority. The research aims to provide insight into the racialised dynamics of the care pathway for young people and to see how race features in this journey and influences decision-making. The research also aims to examine the salience of race within the 'service-user - care provider' relationship. This research is supervised by Dr Melanie Jordan, Dr Shihning Chou and Professor William Dixon.
Oscar O'Mara
Title of PhD project: Balancing security and rehabilitation in a prison environment ~ Theory and Practice
Supervisors: Dr Melanie Jordan and Dr Nicola Carr
This research is supported by HMPPS. It seeks to explore the balance and conflict between prison security and rehabilitation in theory and practice on the frontline of the prison service. The research will involve fieldwork in prison establishments and promote the voice of stakeholders and their experiences.
Mike Harmson
My PhD will explore the characteristics and methods used by adult males who access illegal indecent images of children online. Sexualised chat will also be a topic for study. The research will employ a series of industry meetings with professionals working within the criminal justice system, for example police, who investigate indecent images of children and online solicitation. The aim of the research is to explore and critique emerging offending trends, whilst also improving the knowledge of criminal justice professionals regarding the methods and platforms used by the alleged and convicted sexual online offenders. The findings will contribute to improvements and knowledge within the criminal justice system, especially police referrals, regarding the training and investigation of indecent image offences. Theory in this realm of sexual offending will also be advanced, as a result of the thesis.
Stuart Carroll
PhD candidate in Social Policy focusing on public health and COVID-19 pandemic. Research title = Science and The State: The Role of Politics and Policy in the Procurement of Covid-19 Vaccines in the Coronavirus Pandemic. Stuart is currently working as a Senior Expert Policy and Strategy Adviser for the UK Government's Vaccines Taskforce, Therapeutic Taskforce and Antiviral Taskforce, where he is responsible for leading and coordinating interactions with manufacturers, NHS England, MHRA and NIBSC, JCVI, PHE, DHSC and BEIS, and the Northern Irish Office and Cabinet Office. He is also an elected Borough Councillor for Boyn Hill in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM), and serves as the Deputy Chair of Cabinet and the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Health, Mental Health and Children Services.
Sara Hyde
Sara Hyde worked in and around prisons for over a decade prior to starting her PhD at Nottingham. She has a MA in Theatre from QMUL, within which she specialised in theatre in criminal justice settings. Sara's PhD explores the experiences of prison healthcare staff regarding prisoner self-harm and suicide. Her research interests are: prison health, prison staff, deaths in custody, lived experience in prison research, women in prison, arts in criminal justice settings.