Elaine Player is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She joined the Dickson Poon School of Law in 1990 from the Centre for Criminological Research, University of Oxford. From 2015-2020 she was Vice-Dean (Students Culture and Community) and a member of the Law Executive Team. In 2021 she was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. Most recently she is the programme director of a new undergraduate degree, the LLB Law with Criminology, which commences in the academic year 2026-2027. She has served on the editorial board of a number of academic journals, currently the British Journal of Criminology. She has contributed to consultant reports, including the development of the therapeutic prison at HMP Dovegate and is a member of the advisory panel for HMP Grendon. She currently chairs the board of trustees of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, a charity devoted to public education on criminal justice matters.

Research interests

Elaine’s research interests are principally focused on sentencing and prison studies, with particular attention to the treatment of women in the criminal justice system. She has published four monographs on prison research, most recently a book on the therapeutic treatment of women serving long sentences Therapeutic Community for Women Prisoners: Re-imagining rehabilitation and the loss of liberty (2026) (with Elaine Genders).