Dr Amy Kirby

Amy joined ICPR in 2010, having completed an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice at King's College London and a BA in Criminology at Lancaster University. She was awarded a PhD from the University of Surrey in 2019 for her study of lay participants’ perceptions of the legitimacy of the criminal courts, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Amy has 15 years' experience of conducting academic and policy-oriented research at ICPR. She has worked on projects focusing on lay participation in the courts, youth justice, sentencing and legitimacy. This includes a 20-month ESRC-funded study of victims', witnesses' and defendants' experiences of the Crown Court and a study of the meaning of participation in courts and tribunals, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. She is currently co-investigator on a Nuffield funded study of Lived Experiences of the Law in collaboration with ICPR and Revolving Doors.

Amy's research has been published in monographs and academic journals, such as the British Journal of Criminology, the Criminal Law Review and Criminology and Criminal Justice. She has also co-authored policy-oriented outputs in collaboration with organisations such as Victim Support, Clinks and the Criminal Justice Alliance. She has been invited to present her work and provide expert comment to a range of academic, policy and practice audiences. 

Amy is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London. She convenes the following modules: Victims, Crime and Society (Levels 5 and 6), Youth Justice (Level 7) and Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice (Level 7). Amy also undertakes undergraduate dissertation supervision, postgraduate research project supervision and PhD supervision on a range of topics. She is admissions tutor for the LLM/MA Criminal Law and Criminal Justice and MSc Criminology programmes.

A full list of Amy's publications is available here.