PhD studentship opportunity: Stop and Search in Scotland

Applications are open for an ESRC collaborative PhD studentship titled ‘Stop and Search in Scotland: An analysis of police practice and culture in a time of change’.

The studentship is being offered by the University of Dundee in partnership with Police Scotland, and will focus on an area that has received widespread attention in recent years thanks to the work of SCCJR researcher Kath Murray. Dr Murray’s PhD examined stop and search practices in Scotland and the effects of search encounters on public attitudes towards the police.

Police Scotland began a detailed programme of consultation, policy reform and retraining in late 2014. The PhD project will assess the current cultural climate in relation to stop and search, how the process of implementing the new Code of Practice is received by officers, and the extent to which the culture has changed. Findings will illuminate wider questions of organisational and cultural change in contemporary policing, a topic of intense academic debate in many nations since the 1980s.

The supervisors are Dr Megan O’Neill of the University of Dundee), and Dr Anna Souhami of the University of Edinburgh.

Deadline for applications is 5pm on April 25.