Dr Alex Black
Senior Lecturer in Criminology
Summary
Alex is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and delivers teaching sessions across the undergraduate programme including graduate skills, research methods, policing and cybercrime.
She is also engaged in academic research, primarily in relation to policing and victimisation and the management of public space. She is currently undertaking research in to the tools and powers used to regulate anti-social behaviour and their impact on communities.
About
Alex completed my BA (Hons) degree in Criminology and her MA in Criminology at the University of Hull.
She left Hull in 2006, taking up a position as a researcher/analyst at Greater Manchester Police.
In 2011 Alex undertook a PhD at the University of York investigating post-industrial urban regeneration in the North of England.
She has worked as a teaching fellow at Keele University, Nottingham University and as a Research Assistant at Loughborough University.
She joined Sheffield Hallam in 2017.
Teaching
Sheffield Institute of Law and Justice
College of Social Sciences and Arts
I am the Criminology Course leader and work closely with the criminology module team and students to deliver the criminology programme.
I teach on the Graduate Research and Development modules, Policing and Crime Reduction, Crime and Justice in the Information Age and the Dissertation module.
Publications
Journal articles
Heap, V., & Black, A. (2024). Net-widening, gap-filling, and shortcut justice: the practice of Community Protection Notices to regulate anti-social behaviour. Critical Social Policy. http://doi.org/10.1177/02610183241281344
Heap, V., Black, A., & Devany, C. (2023). Understanding how Community Protection Notices are used to manage anti-social behaviour attributed to people experiencing street homelessness. People, Place and Policy (PPP), 17 (1), 1-17. http://doi.org/10.3351/ppp.2023.3333664643
Heap, V., Black, A., & Rodgers, Z. (2023). Procedural justice and process-based models: understanding how practitioners utilise Community Protection Notices to regulate anti-social behaviour. Criminology and Criminal Justice. http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958221151113
Black, A., & Heap, V. (2021). Procedural justice, compliance and the ‘upstanding citizen’: a study of community protection notices. The British Journal of Criminology. http://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab114
Heap, V., Black, A., & Rodgers, Z. (2021). Preventive justice: exploring the coercive power of community protection notices to tackle anti-social behaviour. Punishment and Society: the international journal of penology. http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474521989801
Lumsden, K., & Black, A. (2020). ‘Sorry, I’m Dead, it’s Too Late Now’: Barriers Faced by D/deaf Citizens When Accessing Police Services. Disability and Society. http://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2020.1829555
Black, A., & Lumsden, K. (2019). Precautionary policing and dispositives of risk in a police force control room in domestic abuse incidents: An ethnography of call handlers, dispatchers and response officers. Policing and society. http://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2019.1568428
Hadlington, L., Lumsden, K., Black, A., & Ferra, F. (2018). A qualitative exploration of police officers’ experiences, challenges, and perceptions of cybercrime. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. http://doi.org/10.1093/police/pay090
Lumsden, K., Goode, J., & Black, A. (2018). ‘I will not be thrown out of the country because I’m an immigrant’: Eastern European migrants’ responses to hate crime in a semi-rural context in the wake of Brexit. Sociological Research Online. http://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418811967
Lumsden, K., & Black, A. (2018). Austerity policing, emotional labour and the boundaries of police work: an ethnography of a police force control room in England. The British Journal of Criminology, 58 (3), 606-623. http://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azx045
Book chapters
Black, A., Lumsden, K., & Hadlington, L. (2019). 'Why Don't You Block Them?' Police Officers' Constructions of the Ideal Victim When Responding to Reports of Interpersonal Cybercrime. In Lumsden, K., & Harmer, E. (Eds.) Online Othering. (pp. 355-378). Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12633-9_15
Reports
Heap, V., Black, A., & Devany, C. (2022). Living within a Public Spaces Protection Order: the impacts of policing anti-social behaviour on people experiencing street homelessness. Sheffield Hallam University, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice. https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-justice/research-and-projects/all-projects/impact-of-anti-social-behaviour-tools-and-powers-on-street-sleeping-homeless-people
Heap, V., Black, A., & Rodgers, Z. (2021). What is it like to be issued with a Community Protection Notice? Sheffield Hallam University. http://manifestoclub.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SHUManifestoClubReport_FOIs_DimaHeap1.pdf
Theses / Dissertations
Tatton, S.E. (2023). Coercive and controlling behaviour:Dominant discourse, police response and the victim-survivor experience. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Albertson, K., Paterson, C., & Black, A. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00577
Internet Publications
Heap, V., Black, A., & Devany, C. (2022). Punishing poverty in public spaces: living within a Public Spaces Protection Order. https://crimetobepoor.org/2022/11/29/punishing-poverty-in-public-spaces-living-within-a-public-spaces-protection-order/
Other publications
Heap, V., Black, A., Archer, B., Ferrazzi, D., & Lynch, R. (2024). Written evidence submitted by Dr Vicky Heap, Dr Alex Black, Benjamin Archer, Dr Dario Ferrazzi and Richard Lynch to the Criminal Justice Bill Public Bill Committee (CJB45). UK Parliament
Heap, V., Grace, J., Black, A., Dickinson, J., & Archer, B. (2020). Is there a need to review the wording and application of guidance and legislation on Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO's)? Joint Committee on Human Rights: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/19144/pdf