Currently the Director of Undergraduate Education within the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW)

Appointed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stop and search working group regarding children and young people (2021)

Formerly on the Executive of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) 2018 - 2023

John has over 15 years cumulative experience beyond academia working in the voluntary/community, statutory and NGOs sector in Northern Ireland covering human rights, ex-offenders, and community-based restorative justice.

John is a senior lecturer in criminology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, with research specialising in the area of policing.  

To date, he has worked on a variety of research, consultancy and advisory roles with all the major policing institutions in Northern Ireland.  This includes experience of engaging and working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Policing Board, and the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern.

In addition, he has also acted as an Independent member of the Belfast Policing and Community Safety Partnership.

John has published widely in the area of policing, with particular focus on police stop and search powers, community policing, police reform, public order policing and paramilitarism.

Previous Grant Successes:

Awarded £30,000 CI on award from the NI Community Relations Council as part of multi-disciplinary team to publish the Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report

Awarded £74,000 as PI from British Academy Advanced Newton Fellowship Fund to collaborate with Federal University Sao Paolo, Brazil on police reform 

CI on EU COST Networking Grant CA17102 'Police Stops' involving 45 parnters across EU universities exploring the use of police 'stop and search' powers (c.€400,000).

Awarded £6,500 from PSNI to examine community expectations around Policing with the Community (September 2016)

Awarded £60,306 co-investigator as part of successful multidisciplinary Ulster University team on EU HORIZON 2020 GAP ‘Gaming for Peace’ bid lead by Trinity College, Dublin (Jan. 2016)

 Awarded  £165,000 co-investigator as part of successful multidisciplinary University of Ulster team on EU HORIZON 2020 FCT10 bid worth total of 4.9m Euros (June 2015)

 Awarded £15,000 consultancy from INTERCOMM IRELAND for examining engagement of young people with PSNI (December 2014)

 Awarded £2850 consultancy from Belfast City Council Community Safety Unit to design a survey tool for the Belfast Policing and Community Safety Partnership for policing and community safety issues (March 2014)

 Awarded £10,000 across two tenders from the Northern Ireland Policing Board to examine issues related to confidence in Police Service of Northern Ireland: "The key drivers of public confidence in policing in NI" and "The influence of politicians, community leaders and the media has on confidence in the police in NI" (February 2014)

 Awarded £2935.50 consultancy from Police Service of Northern Ireland for supervising intra-organisational research by police officers (May 2014)

 Principle Investigator: Awarded £20,000 tender from the Police Service of Northern to research public order policing (joint bid with Institute for Conflict Research) (April 2012)

 Principle Investigator: Awarded £6000 tender to examine community safety, peace walls and new Police Community Safety Partnerships from Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium (September 2011)

 Awarded £4500 tender/teaching contract from PSNI to deliver two day criminology short course for senior PSNI officers: ‘Enhancing Policing: A Criminology of Crime and Society’ (PUP107) (March 2012)