Dr. HELEN BAKER

Dr Helen Baker has been a member of the academic staff at Edge Hill University since September 2010. She graduated from the University of Lancaster with an LLB Honours in Law in 1997 before completing a PhD in Law and Women’s Studies, funded by the ESRC, an empirical and theoretical study on women’s experiences of domestic violence; a research area in which she has maintained a long-standing interest. She has worked at Blackburn College, The University of Lancaster and The University of Liverpool in the past.

In 2003, she was a co-researcher on a Save the Children project on children’s experiences of domestic violence service provision, together with Dr. Helen Stalford and Professor Fiona Beveridge. The project began a particular interest in the needs of children and young people in relation to domestic violence laws and service provision; an area in which she has researched ever since.

Her recent research work has focused on the needs of teenage boys in relation to domestic violence, and how they are constructed in relation to parent abuse or child-to-parent violence. Her current work examines the gendered harms of the pharmaceutical industry, and the construction of women who experience violence and abuse under the criminal law.

Helen is an active member of the Power, Discourse and Harms Research Group in the School of Law, Criminology and Policing. She is also a member of The SLSA (Socio-Legal Studies Association), SLS (Society of Legal Scholars) and the BSC (The British Society for Criminology).

Helen has been invited to speak at many practitioner conferences as a result of her specialist knowledge including for regional and national Children’s Services, Safeguarding Children Initiatives and Safer Communities Partnerships. Helen has also been an external examiner for both undergraduate and postgraduate research degrees in the past at St. Helen’s College, Liverpool John Moores University and Aberystwyth University respectively. Helen is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Helen teaches the following modules at undergraduate level: 

CRI1122 Introduction to the Criminal Justice Process
CRI1123 Histories of Crime, Policing and Punishment
CRI1125 Introduction to the Criminal Justice Process
CRI2027 Crime, Law and Society
CRI3020 Dissertation