Professor Abi Dymond

My current research interests and impact work focuses on the use of force and violence by the police and other state officials, including lethal force and so-called ‘less-lethal’ weapons such as the electric-shock weapon the ‘Taser’. Theoretically, I aim to work across disciplines, bringing insights from Science and Technology Studies to bear on criminology to generate new understandings in this area. Methodologically, I aim to promote evidence-based policing, and mixed methods research. I engage in a range of qualitative work, including interviews and observational work (perhaps most extensively on police use of Taser) and also use quantitative methods. Having helped establish a new police use of force reporting system in the UK, I secured ESRC funding to analyse the data gathered under this system, believed to be one of the largest use of force studies in the world.

I engage in a range of impact activities alongside my research, both nationally (via my work advising the National Police Chief’s Council, College of Policing, the Independent Office of Police Conduct and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary) and internationally (working with UN Special Rapporteurs, the UN Prevention of Torture Subcommittee, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and the OSCE, amongst others). I previously worked for the UK NGO the Omega Research Foundation and also received travel costs from Taser International between the 2nd and 8th November 2014 to attend the Annual Conference of the Institute for the Prevention of In Custody Deaths and to present my research to their Senior Management.

I was delighted to win the Policing Book Prize from the European Society of Criminology Policing Working Group (2023) for my monograph Electric-shock weapons, TASERS and Policing: Myths and Realities, as well as the European Society of Criminology Early Career Prize, awarded by the Policing Working Group (2021), and the ESRC Impact Prize for Outstanding Early Career Impact in 2018. You can watch a short video about some of my impact work, produced by the ESRC for this award, at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTdNezg6kn8&list=PLhv2mBITlrX4to_EOOGSaXwRMJPfsck81&index=8

Please see the research and impact pages for more information about my work.

Biography:

Prior to entering academia in 2013, I worked for, and with, a range of human rights and international development NGOs. As Research Associate at the Omega Research Foundation for nearly a decade I led on an EU funded, multi-stakeholder project assessing and developing good practice in the use of less lethal weapons--including electric-shock weapons--in law enforcement and corrections.

Before this, I was Campaigns Officer for the social enterprise the Big Life Company, working on issues around homelessness, housing insecurity and social exclusion, and Policy Analyst with the international development NGO the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund. In this latter role, I worked with local partners to conduct primary research into, and engage in advocacy work on, various development issues in sub-saharan Africa. This included research into copper-mining on the Zambian copper-belt, and on sexual and gender based violence in DR Congo.

I place a high emphasis on volunteering and community work, and for the last decade have undertaken voluntary work alongside my paid responsibilities. Previous volunteer roles include working with The Big Issue in the North (where I set up and ran service user forums), Manchester Rape Crisis (as a helpline volunteer), Victim Support (where I specialised in providing emotional and practical support to victims of domestic violence and violent crime) and the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Exeter, where I focused on Safer Custody and use of force, amongst other issues.