Dean Wilkinson is a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Coaching Psychologist whose research focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions designed to reduce violence and support rehabilitation within criminal justice settings. He joined Edge Hill University in 2024 and has more than 15 years of experience conducting applied research and evaluation across policing, prisons, youth justice and community justice contexts.

Dean leads a programme of research examining how interventions and system-level initiatives can prevent violence and support behavioural change among justice-involved populations. His work combines mixed-methods evaluation, systematic review methodologies and innovative analytical approaches to examine the effectiveness, implementation and impact of criminal justice interventions.

He currently leads a multi-year programme of evaluation research for a Violence Reduction Partnership, overseeing research examining system change initiatives, place-based violence prevention strategies and targeted interventions delivered by criminal justice and third-sector organisations. This work involves collaboration with police forces, local authorities and voluntary sector organisations and contributes to the development of evidence-informed policy and practice within violence prevention partnerships.

Alongside this work, Dean has developed research examining creative and arts-based approaches to rehabilitation, including studies exploring the role of music and creative methodologies in supporting engagement, wellbeing and desistance among individuals in prison and youth justice settings. His research has contributed to discussions around innovative approaches to intervention design and engagement within criminal justice contexts.

A further strand of his research explores the relationship between identity, wellbeing and victimisation, including work examining sexual minority experiences of victimisation and fear of crime, as well as systematic reviews and secondary data analyses exploring the wellbeing of sexual minority populations of faith.

Dean’s doctoral research examined the relationship between psychological characteristics and crime-based moral reasoning, exploring how clinical and subclinical traits such as schizotypy and delusional ideation may influence reasoning about moral and criminal scenarios.

Across his research Dean works closely with practitioners and policymakers to ensure that research findings inform the development of evidence-based interventions and policy responses within criminal justice systems.

His research has been presented at national and international conferences, is published in academic and practitioner journals and contributes to wider debates around evidenced-based violence prevention and criminal justice interventions.