Research Officer, Centre for Criminology

Grade 6: £32,332- £38,205 per annum

Reporting to Professor Carolyn Hoyle, the post holder will be a member of the Death Penalty Research Unit research group within the Centre for Criminology with responsibility for the provision of research support for the ESRC-funded project ‘Mapping the Political Economy of Drugs and the Death Penalty in Southeast Asia’. The post holder will be part of a small research team, along with the PI, Co-I and a project manager.

This three-year research project (2022-25), co-directed by the Death Penalty Research Unit and the Death Penalty Project, will challenge the efficacy of the death penalty, and rationales for retention for drug crimes across Southeast Asia. It will test the veracity of assumptions about who is convicted of drug offences and the deterrent effect of the death penalty. To achieve these goals, it will generate new empirical knowledge about who is on death row for drug offences and the factors that influence decisions to commit (or resist) drug offences, while placing the data in the context of historical and contemporary power relations, politics and culture.

The post holder will take primary responsibility for collating, cleaning, analysing and producing output reports on quantitative and qualitative research data from both the macro and the micro projects;  collating data for the ‘Mapping Project’, entering the data onto a database, analysing the data, and preparing output reports; cleaning, analysing and preparing output reports from the data collected by a team of researchers in Indonesia and analysing qualitative data from interviews with criminal justice practitioners in Indonesia.

The successful candidate should hold a first degree and a Master’s degree in criminology, sociology, psychology, or a similarly relevant discipline; hold or working toward a doctorate in criminology, sociology, psychology, or a similarly relevant discipline; possess specialist knowledge and experience in quantitative research data collection and analysis (excellent working knowledge of Excel and SPSS or another similar statistical analysis programme) and in at least one of the following: death penalty research; drug laws and policies; criminal justice in Southeast Asia.  Working knowledge of death penalty law and policy, particularly in Southeast Asia and deterrence theories are desirable.

This post is full time from 1 January 2024 (a later start date can be negotiated) and fixed term until 31 July 2025 with a possibility of extension to 31 January 2026.  The postholder will be based at the Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, St Cross Building, St Cross Road, OX1 3UL

Applications for this vacancy are to be made online via www.recruit.ox.ac.uk and enter vacancy ID: 167787. You will be required to submit a covering letter and CV as part of your application.

Closing date for applications is midday on Monday 9 October 2023.  Interviews will take place in late October or early November.

Shortlisted applicants will be asked to arrange for two references to be submitted before the interviews take place.

Deadline date: Midday on Monday 9 October 2023