Niall joined SCCJR in 2007 with his appointment as a Lecturer in Criminology at Stirling University. He previously worked at the Home Office, where he was a senior research officer in the policing research programme. Niall's recent research activity has centred on organised immigration crime, the local impacts of organised crime, and developing harm-based measures of organised crime activity. Principally, he has been working with colleagues in the Centre, the Scottish Government, and in the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency on a range of projects that aim to develop methodologies, both for better assessing organised crime threats, and for evaluating subsequent law enforcement responses.   Prior to his work in this area, his research focussed on acquisitive crime reduction techniques, local community safety and partnership working.