Dr Sarah Anderson

I have been a lecturer in Criminology since 2018, and joined Edinburgh Napier University in December 2020, having previously worked at University of the West of Scotland.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority and have significant experience teaching in research methods, as well as on a wide range of criminology modules. At ENU, I am the module leader for the second year Quantitative Research module, as well as the Dissertation for the Masters in Applied Criminology and Forensic Psychology programme – and contribute to other modules including Penology and Cybercrime.

My PhD, undertaken at the University of Glasgow and completed in 2019, explored the stories people told about their attempts at desistance (i.e. moving away) from offending, and its relationship with recovery from trauma and substance use . I have published multiple articles related to desistance and recoveries, and my article on the value of ‘bearing witness’ to desistance won the Probation Journal’s prize for their best paper of 2016.

Following on from my PhD, my work has two central strands. First, I am focused on the intersection of health, wellbeing and justice with a particular focus on understanding the harms of imprisonment and the criminal justice system. In this work I have been focused on thinking critically on adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed practice in the criminal justice system. The second strand of work is focused on understanding how people move out of and stay out of crime and the criminal justice system. One of the ways that I took forward this work was as Co-Investigator on a Carnegie Trust (Scotland) funded project with Dr Shane Horgan which looks at desistance from cyber-dependent crime. This project explores how people’s involvement in ‘hacking’ (legal, illegal and somewhere in between) changes over their lives, and how they narrate these changes.

Before joining academia I worked for a number of years in the voluntary sector, including within prisons undertaking housing support work, and latterly as Director of Research and Development at Revolving Doors Agency, where I worked on NHS England’s liaison and diversion programme for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities in the criminal justice system. I have also served on the boards of a number of organisations working on issues related to criminal justice and immigration detention.

Relevant publications:

Anderson, S. (2025) The trouble with trauma: Interconnected forms of violence in the lives of repeatedly criminalised men. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 64, 24–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12578

Miller J and Anderson S (2021) A qualitative exploration of the attitudes of young people to the sentencing of young people in Scotland. Report submitted to the Scottish Sentencing Council. Scottish Sentencing Council

Anderson, S. (2021) Trauma-informed or trauma-inducing? The criminal justice system as an active player in the perpetration of trauma. In Revolving Doors Agency (ed) The knot: An essay collection on the interconnectedness of poverty, trauma, and multiple disadvantage. Revolving doors agency and Lankelly Chase Foundation. Available at: https://revolving-doors.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/The-Knot-The-interconnectedness-of-poverty-trauma-and-multiple-disadvantage-FINAL.pdf

Anderson, S. (2019). Frustrating desistance: stigma as a barrier to change. In D. Best, & C. Colman (Eds.), Strengths-Based Approaches to Crime and Substance Use : From Drugs and Crime to Desistance and Recovery (1st ed.). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Strengths-Based-Approaches-to-Crime-and-Substance-Use-From-Drugs-and-Crime/Best-Colman/p/book/9781138288744

Anderson, S. (2019). Rethinking Adverse Childhood Experiences. Howard League for Penal Reform Early Career Academics Network Bulletin, Issue 41, Apr 2019. Available at: https://www.napier.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/research-search/outputs/rethinking-adverse-childhood-experiences