Dr Kirsty Deacon

she/her

Kirsty’s main research focus is on families and imprisonment and in particular the experiences of children and young people with a family member in prison. She 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”. As part of her ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Strathclyde, completed in 2021, she looked 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 on research projects looking at desistance among ex-military personnel in custody, trauma-informed policing, and previously worked at CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection) on projects relating to care-experienced children and young people.

Kirsty is currently a Research Officer with the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, working on a two-year partnership project with Families Outside exploring care-experienced children and young people’s experiences of sibling imprisonment. This project is funded by The Promise Partnership – Getting it Right for Brothers and Sisters and will finish in December 2023.

Recent publications

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/