Kirsty is a Research Associate at the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice at the University of Strathclyde.
Kirsty completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2019 titled, “Families – Inside Prison and Out: Young people’s experiences of having a family member in prison”. Following this, Kirsty worked on a number of different academic research projects, including looking at desistance amongst ex-military personnel in custody and trauma-informed policing, as well as working with CELCIS on a project relating to care-experienced children and young people. She then went on to complete an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Strathclyde in 2021, looking at the experiences of prison staff in relation to families of prisoners, carrying out research investigating how prison service staff understand and operationalise the Scottish Prison Service Family Strategy.
Kirsty has also worked in research roles outside of academia as a research officer with the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration and as a senior criminal justice researcher with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).
Before completing her PhD, Kirsty worked as an analyst with Police Scotland and has been a volunteer at The Croft visitor centre at HMP Barlinnie and an Independent Prison Monitor at HMP Low Moss.
Deacon, K. (2022) “Never mind, we can’t help you”: Young people’s experiences of the imprisonment of a sibling. Families, Relationships and Societies (published online ahead of print 2022). https://doi.org/10.1332/204674321X16472598316856
Deacon, K. (2022) Dual Liminars: Teenagers and young people with a family member in prison. British Journal of Criminology (published online ahead of print 2022). https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac055
Getting it Right for Families Affected by Imprisonment – https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/publications/getting-it-right-for-families-affected-by-imprisonment/
Imprisoned Families: Young people’s experiences of simultaneous family imprisonment – https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/publications/sjf-briefing-imprisoned-families-young-peoples-experiences-of-simultaneous-family-imprisonment/
Family Learning Group HMP Kilmarnock – https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/publications/family-learning-group-hmp-kilmarnock/
Criminal Justice Process and Institutions
