Louise Brangan is a Lecturer in Criminology in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR) in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She completed her PhD in Criminology at the University of Edinburgh in 2017. In 2015 she was a visiting Fulbright scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC Berkeley. Between 2014-2017 she was a researcher and the Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Howard League Scotland, and prior to moving to Scotland Louise worked with the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
Louise’s research interests focus on the sociology of punishment, particularly comparative and historical study of imprisonment and penal politics. Her forthcoming book 'The Politics of Punishment' is an examination of penality in Ireland and Scotland from 1970 until the end of the 1990s. Read a short synopsis of the book here: https://icrnetwork.ie/2021/03/09/the-politics-of-punishment/
Her first article, "Civilising Imprisonment", was awarded the British Society of Criminology's Brian Willan best article prize from a new scholar.
Louise is currently on maternity leave. When she returns she will begin her ESRC New Investigator funded study of Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, "Mass Decarceration: A critical social history'.
Publications
Brangan L (2021) Pastoral penality in 1970s Ireland: Addressing the pains of imprisonment. Theoretical Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480619843295
Brangan, L. (2020) Exceptional states: The political geography of comparative penology. in Punishment & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474520915995
Brangan L (2019) Civilising Imprisonment: The Limits of Scottish Penal Exceptionalism. British Journal of Criminology, 59 (4), pp. 780-799. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azy057
Bird, J., Brangan, L. & Sparks, R., (2016) The Politics of Imprisonment Handbook on Prisons. Jewkes, Y., Crewe, B. & Bennett, J. (eds.). 2nd ed. Routledge
'The Politics of Punishment: A comparative study of imprisonment and political culture', (forthcoming), Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-of-Punishment-A-Comparative-Study-of-Imprisonment-and-Political/Brangan/p/book/9780367900724